A will is read aloud once, in a room full of people who all want something, and it is the last thing the dead get to say. The condition at the bottom is where the adventure starts.
The title and the testator, the declaration that makes the paper a will, the bequests one by one, to whom and what, the executor and the conditions. At the foot, the place and date, the signature, the witnesses and a stamp you can move. The printed headings can be reworded, and the conditions and the witnesses can come off.
The baron’s testament is a charter on vellum with rubricated capitals and a blind-stamped seal, and an iron coffer nobody is to open. The probate registry is a colony’s printout of a voice-recorded will, with a hologram and a sealed log. The modern will is a word-processed document with initials at the foot of the page and a storage unit to be burned. The 1920s solicitor’s will leaves a house on the Aylesbury Pike to a grand-nephew, on conditions that involve the north room.
A4 at 300 DPI. The paper that says the testator is dead is a Death Certificate, and the paper that hands over the house while he still lives is a Contract.