Self-proving affidavit
Most states allow a notarized affidavit signed at the same time as the will, which spares the witnesses from being tracked down later. Skipping it adds delay to probate.
Blended family, a house in another state, a business? What a form will misses
The Residuary Clause
The residuary clause
Everything not specifically given away passes under the residuary clause, so it does more work than any other sentence in the will. Read it before anything else.
Stepchildren are not children
Unless legally adopted, stepchildren are usually excluded from the default definition of children in a will. Naming them individually removes the question.
Online packages, state statutory forms, and drafted wills handle simple estates about equally well; the differences appear at the complications, and here is where to look for them.
A will made from a form is not automatically weaker than one drafted by an attorney, and the reason is narrow: every state judges a will first on execution, not on authorship. Signature, witnesses, and in most states a notarized self-proving affidavit decide whether the document is admitted at all. A form package that walks a signer through those steps correctly clears the same bar a drafted will clears. What separates the tiers is not validity. It is whether the document says anything useful about the specific thing that will go wrong in a particular family.
The three tiers, and what each one is actually built for
A state statutory will, where the legislature has published one, is a fill-in form written into the probate code itself, which means its language has been pre-approved and its structure is fixed. An online package generates a longer document from a questionnaire, with boilerplate that is usually competent and occasionally generic to the wrong state. A drafted will is the same boilerplate plus decisions someone made on purpose. The careful reader treats all three the same way at first: read the residuary clause, then read the definitions, then read the fiduciary powers, and see whether the document contemplates the family that exists.
Blended families and unequal shares between siblings
Form wills tend to assume one spouse, one set of children, and equal division. A blended family breaks that assumption in two places at once. Check whether "children" is defined to include or exclude stepchildren, because the default in most states excludes them unless legally adopted, and check whether a gift to a predeceased child passes to that child's own children or back into the pot. Unequal shares survive better when the document states the amount plainly and does not explain the reasoning; explanations invite argument. A spouse's statutory elective share sits outside the will entirely and no form can waive it.
Property in another state, and business interests
Real estate is governed by the law of the state where it sits, so a vacation house in another state generally means a second, ancillary probate there, on that state's timetable, with a personal representative that state will accept. No will of any tier avoids that. A revocable trust holding the deed does, which is a drafting and funding question rather than a form question, and the funding is the part people skip. Business interests have a separate trap: the operating agreement or shareholder agreement may restrict transfer at death, and it controls over the will. Read that agreement before choosing the document.
A child with a disability, and the order this has to happen in
This is the complication where sequence is unforgiving. An outright gift to a beneficiary receiving needs-based benefits can disqualify them, and the Social Security Administration, which administers Supplemental Security Income, counts inherited assets as resources when they land. A third-party special needs trust, funded at death rather than during life, holds the share without counting, but it has to exist in the will or in a standing trust before the death occurs. It cannot be assembled afterward by agreement among the siblings. Form packages rarely include one, and the ones that do rarely coordinate it with beneficiary designations on retirement accounts.
What a careful reader checks line by line
Read the document as though a stranger will read it in three years with no one available to explain it. Confirm the fiduciary powers section lets the executor sell real property without a court order, since the absence of that clause turns a routine sale into a motion. Confirm there is a named alternate for every role, including guardian. Confirm the simultaneous death provision exists. Then reconcile the will against the beneficiary forms on every retirement account, life insurance policy, and payable-on-death account, because those pass outside the will regardless of what it says, and a form package will not check them for you.
The practical rule that emerges is about matching, not about spending. An estate that is a house in one state, some accounts, and children who get equal shares is well served by a statutory form correctly signed. Add a second state, a closely held business, a stepchild, or a beneficiary on benefits, and the drafting is doing real work that the form was never asked to do. Reading your own document against that list takes an evening and tells you which one you need.