Any or all of the attesting witnesses to any will, at the request of the testator, may make and subscribe an affidavit before any officer authorized to administer oaths, in or out of the state, stating such facts as would be required of them in testimony in court to establish and prove the will; and if the testator shall preserve such affidavits with the will, and the same are produced and offered in evidence when the will is offered for probate, they shall be admissible in evidence and have the same probative value as if the affiants had appeared in court or before the clerk thereof and testified to the facts stated in the affidavit: Provided, That such affidavits shall not be admissible in evidence in any case in which there is a contest over the will.
Structure West Virginia Code
Article 5. Production, Probate and Record of Wills
§41-5-2. Clerk to Notify Executor and Beneficiaries, and to Keep Will Safe in His Office
§41-5-3. Compelling Production of Will and Offer of Probate
§41-5-5. Procedure for Probate in Solemn Form
§41-5-7. Appeal From Probate Order -- When to Be Taken; Procedure
§41-5-9. Order as Bar to Suit in Equity
§41-5-10. Ex Parte Procedure to Probate; Appeal
§41-5-12. Impeachment or Establishment in Court -- by Person Under Disability or Nonresident
§41-5-13. Ancillary Administration; Probate or Recordation of Foreign Will
§41-5-14. When Depositions Admissible
§41-5-15. Proof of Will While Testator Living
§41-5-16. Statements of Particulars in Will Contests
§41-5-17. Probated Wills to Be Recorded and Indexed
§41-5-18. Recording in Other Counties; Duty of Personal Representative or Devisee
§41-5-19. Title of Bona Fide Purchasers of Real Estate From Heirs
§41-5-20. Title to Real Estate Devised by Wills; Rights of Devisees and Bona Fide Purchasers