At the solicitors today to have a signature witnessed. Kerching! That'll be £5 Sir.
Anyhoo, I ran through what it was explaining that my sister had already signed it, she's 100 miles away, offering my passport etc and started to fill in the details. I signed with her peering over me and then comes the bit where she asks me to affirm and repeat the words one by one
... all done, and she's just about to rubber stamp it when she says:
"Oh, I can't do it."
"Why not?"
"Because there's an assumption that I witnessed your sister's signature, and I didn't"
"I did explain this when I showed you the form... ?"
"Yes... No, but I can't do it now."
"So what should we do?"
"I think you'll have to get 2 forms and do them independently ... "
Carefully placing the fiver back in my wallet I leave ...
On the phone to the Building Soc. whose form it was... explained everything...
"Could I have 2 more forms please. One for my sister and one for me?"
"Er ... no we can't do that because we've already sent the form out to her"
"But we can't use this one.. the solicitor won't witness it!"
"Er... I see ... er"
"What do we do then?"
"Well can't you both sign it together?"
"That, my friend is a geographical impossibility right now. We are in two different places"
" Oh dear"
"So what do you advise we do?"
"Er ... I don't actually know"
Strewth ... bureaucracy buggerybollox
At this point I have a cunning plan ...
"Hello? I need to tell you something. I've just spoiled the form. In fact I've spilled coffee all over it and I really can't use it ... "
"Oh dear"
"Could you send out a fresh one? To my sister?"
"Oh. Alright. But if there's a problem with you signing it just put in a covering letter to explain"
Eh voila!
The moral of the story is NOT to appoint joint executors in your will ... that is unless you're feeling particularly mischievous.
I have an idea to appoint as executors to my will, the serving Prime Minister and his whole Cabinet of Ministers
It is after all a binding legal document
