Personal Property Memorandum Requirements in Mississippi
At a glance
| Governing law and device recognized | Limited fixed-writing incorporation route, not a freely updatable statutory memorandum (Miss. Code Ann. § 91-5-1; Massingale) |
|---|---|
| Will reference required | Yes for incorporation; the will must manifest intent to incorporate the existing writing and identify it with reasonable certainty (Massingale) |
| Eligible property and exclusions | No memorandum-specific tangible-property definition, exclusion list, or value cap; incorporation is a general extrinsic-writing doctrine |
| Signature, handwriting, and date | No separate memorandum formality stated; an independently binding later will or codicil must be signed and, unless wholly handwritten and subscribed, witnessed by two credible witnesses (§ 91-5-1) |
| Item and devisee identification | No memorandum-specific item-and-recipient formula; the will must identify the separate writing with reasonable certainty (Massingale) |
| Timing before or after the will | Writing must already exist when the will is executed; no after-execution list route (Massingale) |
| Alteration, replacement, and conflict priority | No informal alteration or conflict-priority rule; a later binding change requires a valid will or codicil under § 91-5-1 |
| Probate use, effect, and failure consequence | A qualifying existing writing may be incorporated into the will; an unincorporated separate dispositive paper must independently satisfy will or codicil formalities to bind (Massingale; § 91-5-1) |
Mississippi uses fixed incorporation, not an updatable list statute
Mississippi's current Chapter 5 covers will execution, revocation, lapse, trustee bequests, nuncupative wills, spousal rights, and related subjects. It contains no statute authorizing a separate, freely updatable list for tangible personal property.
The available route is ordinary incorporation by reference. In Massingale, the Court of Appeals said a writing that is not itself a valid will may be incorporated if it already exists when the will is executed, the will shows an intent to incorporate it, and the will identifies it with reasonable certainty. The document-specific facts matter; merely keeping a later list with the will does not supply the required reference.
What trips people up
A later page cannot borrow the signatures of an earlier will. Massingale rejected a separately created and separately signed ninth page because the executed will did not incorporate it and the page did not independently satisfy Miss. Code Ann. § 91-5-1.
That section requires a will or codicil to be signed by the testator or at the testator's express direction. Unless the instrument is wholly written and subscribed by the testator, two credible witnesses must attest it in the testator's presence. Mississippi states no relaxed signature, witness, date, item-description, excluded-property, or conflict-priority rule for a personal property memorandum.
Because incorporation requires a writing already in existence, an informal later replacement or alteration is not swept into the will by the earlier reference. A binding later change must use a valid will or codicil rather than the freely revised list route available in some states.
Common questions
Can the list be created after the will is signed?
Not through the incorporation route described in Massingale. The writing must be in existence when the will is executed. A later dispositive writing must independently satisfy the requirements for a will or codicil to bind.
Does the list need its own witnesses?
Mississippi has no separate memorandum execution rule. A preexisting writing can be incorporated even though it is not itself valid as a will, but a later writing offered as an independent will or codicil must satisfy § 91-5-1, including its witness requirement unless wholly written and subscribed by the testator.
Does Mississippi give a special property or value limit?
No. Because there is no memorandum statute, Chapter 5 supplies no memorandum- specific tangible-property definition, exclusion list, per-item ceiling, or aggregate ceiling.
What if the will never mentions the separate paper?
The paper is not incorporated. Massingale affirmed rejection of a separate page where the executed will never identified, discussed, or incorporated it and the page did not independently satisfy will formalities.
Statutes and sources
- Miss. Code Ann. tit. 91, ch. 5 and § 91-5-1 — complete wills-chapter index and execution requirements. Public.Resource.Org/UniCourt Official Code transform: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/unicourt/cic-code-ms/master/transforms/ms/ocms/r78/gov.ms.code.title.91.html (accessed 2026-08-11; checked through the completed post-release bill sweep).
- In re Last Will & Testament of Massingale, 199 So. 3d 710, 716-18 (Miss. Ct. App. 2016) — existing-writing, intent, reasonable-identification, and failure rules. Mississippi Judiciary: https://courts.ms.gov/images/Opinions/CO114577.pdf (accessed 2026-08-11).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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