---
type: "Bill"
title: "AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 12 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE REGISTER OF WILLS."
description: "Under current law, a person may deposit, for a fee, an original will with the Register of Wills in New Castle County for safekeeping. The person is not required to be a resident of New Castle County, but only the New Castle County Register of Wills is authorized to store original wills."
jurisdiction: "us/states/de"
legislature: "Delaware General Assembly"
session: "149"
identifier: "SB 238"
citation: "Delaware SB 238 (149)"
classification: ["bill"]
subjects: []
status: "enacted"
primary_sponsors: ["Brian Pettyjohn", "Bryant L. Richardson", "David L. Wilson"]
version_count: 1
action_count: 10
vote_count: 2
first_action: "2018-06-09"
last_action: "2018-07-23"
source: "openstates"
source_identifier: "ocd-bill/f91a15a3-5d53-463d-9d45-4f1603b50590"
source_url: "https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=26799"
source_hash: "a16ce49678feeddb4cb8a95e168f5e1115a7662dd4c261020d97159b4495a4cc"
vintage: "2026-07-01"
source_snapshot: "https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump"
retrieved_at: "2026-07-06"
confidence: "reported"
tags: ["legislation", "bill", "us-de"]
---

# Delaware SB 238 (149) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 12 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO THE REGISTER OF WILLS.

Under current law, a person may deposit, for a fee, an original will with the Register of Wills in New Castle County for safekeeping. The person is not required to be a resident of New Castle County, but only the New Castle County Register of Wills is authorized to store original wills.

## Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. **Bill Text** (committee substitute) — [source](https://legis.delaware.gov/json/BillDetail/GenerateHtmlDocument?legislationId=26799&legislationTypeId=1&docTypeId=2&legislationName=SB238)

## Votes

- SM — **40–0** (pass) · lower
- SM — **19–0** (pass) · upper

## Sponsors

- Brian Pettyjohn — primary (person)
- Bryant L. Richardson — primary (person)
- David L. Wilson — primary (person)
- Gerald W. Hocker — cosponsor (person)
- Paul S. Baumbach — cosponsor (person)

## Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

- **2018-06-09** Introduced and Assigned to Judicial & Community Affairs Committee in Senate `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2018-06-12** Amendment SA 1 to SB 238 - Introduced and Placed With Bill `amendment-introduction`
- **2018-06-13** Reported Out of Committee (Judicial & Community Affairs) in Senate with 4 On Its Merits `committee-passage`
- **2018-06-19** Amendment SA 1 to SB 238 - Passed By Senate. Votes: 19 YES 2 ABSENT `amendment-passage`
- **2018-06-19** Passed By Senate. Votes: 19 YES 2 ABSENT `passage`
- **2018-06-20** Assigned to Economic Development/Banking/Insurance/Commerce Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2018-06-27** Re-Assigned to Administration Committee in House `introduction, referral-committee`
- **2018-06-27** Reported Out of Committee (Administration) in House with 1 Favorable, 4 On Its Merits `committee-passage-favorable, committee-passage`
- **2018-06-30** Passed By House. Votes: 40 YES 1 ABSENT `passage`
- **2018-07-23** Signed by Governor `executive-signature`

## Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot [2026-07-01](https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump); origin `ocd-bill/f91a15a3-5d53-463d-9d45-4f1603b50590`. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).