Types of will in Peru: which one should you make?

The five wills in the Civil Code

Article 691 splits wills into two groups. The ordinary wills are three: the one executed by public deed (testamento por escritura pública), the sealed will (testamento cerrado) and the holographic or handwritten will (testamento ológrafo). The special wills — military and maritime — are allowed only in the circumstances the Code sets for them, and we leave them aside because almost nobody uses them.

In practice the choice is between the three ordinary wills. What separates them is not the content but the form: who writes it, who sees it and what happens after death.

Will by public deed

This is the will executed at a notary’s office. Article 696 lists its essential formalities. The ones that matter on signing day:

The original stays in the notary’s register. That is what makes it solid: it does not get lost, it cannot be altered, and nobody has to prove after death that the handwriting was the testator’s.

If your Spanish is limited, raise it with the notary before the appointment. The formalities require that you express your will yourself and that the text is read and checked clause by clause; how a notary handles a testator who does not read Spanish is a practical question we did not find answered in the Code.

Sealed will

This is the route for someone who does not want the notary or the witnesses to know the contents. Article 699 requires, in a single act:

1. The document, signed on every page by the testator, goes inside an envelope or cover sealed so that it cannot be opened without breaking or altering it.
2. The testator hands it personally to the notary in front of two competent witnesses, declaring that it contains their will.
3. The notary writes a record (acta) of the delivery on the cover, signed by everyone, and transcribes it into the notarial register.
4. The notary gives the testator a certified copy of that record.

The article also lets a person with a visual impairment use braille or another medium, with their fingerprint and signature on every page. The contents stay secret; the existence of the will does not.

Holographic will

Article 707 sums it up in one line: entirely written, dated and signed by the testator themself. All three, by hand. A printed text with a handwritten signature is not a holographic will.

There is a second condition people forget: to take effect it must be protocolised, after judicial verification, within a maximum of one year from the testator’s death. If nobody files it in time, it is as if it never existed and the estate passes by intestate succession.

Which to choose

• Public deed if you want the lowest risk of challenge and do not mind the notary and two witnesses knowing the contents. This is the default recommendation.
• Sealed if the contents must stay private but you want a certain date and notarial custody.
• Holographic if nothing else is available. It is free and immediate, but depends on someone finding it and taking it to a judge within the year.

What no will can change

The form of the will does not enlarge what you can give away. If you have children, other descendants or a spouse, two thirds of your estate are the legítima and belong to your forced heirs by law; with only parents or ascendants the reserved share drops to one half. The details and the table are on the forced heirship page.

The same goes for anyone who wants to cut out a child: the will must state a ground the law lists, and that is rarely met. We explain it on the page about disinheriting a child.

Foreign residents

If you are domiciled in Peru, your succession is governed by Peruvian law — these wills, this legítima — even over assets held abroad. The rule is article 2100 of the Civil Code and it is explained on the forced heirship page. For assets abroad, Peruvian courts have no jurisdiction over land and buildings located outside Peru (article 2067(1)), and the country where the property is may apply its own rules to it. A will made in your home country does not change which law applies; whether its form is accepted here is a separate question for a lawyer.