Is an Online Will Legal in Missouri?

No Missouri statute recognizes an unwitnessed handwritten will: § 474.320 requires attestation by two or more competent witnesses, and ch. 474 contains no holographic-will provision. A handwritten will executed with the § 474.320 formalities is simply an ordinary will. A holographic will executed elsewhere can be valid in Missouri under § 474.360 if its execution complied with the law of the place of execution or of the testator's domicile, since that section covers any written will. (RSMo § 474.320)

Narrow deathbed provision only: a nuncupative will may be made only by a person in imminent peril of death and is valid only if the testator died as a result of the impending peril. It must be declared to be the testator's will before two disinterested witnesses, reduced to writing by or under the direction of one of the witnesses within thirty days, and submitted for probate within six months after the death. It may dispose of personal property only, to an aggregate value not exceeding five hundred dollars, and it neither revokes nor changes an existing written will.

The five-hundred-dollar cap makes this provision practically useless for modern estates. (RSMo § 474.340)

An electronic will shall be a will for all purposes of Missouri law, with the general law of wills and principles of equity applying except as modified by §§ 474.540 to 474.564 (§ 474.544). The will must be a record readable as text, signed by the testator or by another under the testator's direction (§ 474.548). Self-proof can be completed before a remote online notary when fewer than two witnesses are physically present with the testator (§ 474.550). A separate provision, § 474.600, validated remote audio-visual execution of estate planning documents, including wills, during the COVID-19 emergency window of April 6, 2020 through December 31, 2021. (RSMo §§ 474.540 to 474.564)

Remote witnessing: allowed within the statute’s conditions. An electronic will must be witnessed by at least two individuals who are in the physical or electronic presence of the testator when they witness the signing or the testator's acknowledgment. 'Electronic presence' means the relationship of two or more individuals in different locations in real time using technology enabling live, interactive audio-visual communication that allows for observation, direct interaction, and communication between or among the individuals (§ 474.542). If no self-proving affidavit is signed contemporaneously with the execution of the electronic will, a witness must be a resident of a state and physically located in a state at the time of signing.