When Aretha Franklin died last year, her family said that she had left no will. But, as it turns out, she may have left a few of them.

In a court filing on Monday, the personal representative of Ms. Franklin’s estate disclosed that three handwritten documents had been discovered just weeks ago at Ms. Franklin’s home — one in a spiral notebook under her sofa cushions, the others in a locked cabinet — and asked a Michigan probate judge to decide whether any of them are valid wills.

The scrawled papers, which are dated between 2010 and 2014, are at times barely legible, with cross-outs, marginal notes and some salty tangents. Yet the documents, which the Franklin estate said it considers to be three separate wills, also lay out her intentions about distributing her assets after her death, including music royalties, real estate, jewelry and even a piano and stereo equipment.

Image A page from one of the handwritten documents found in Aretha Franklin’s home.

The unexpected surfacing of the documents has raised a whole new set of questions, not only about Ms. Franklin’s intentions, but about the validity of wills that are unwitnessed and roughly drafted.