Making a Will The importance of making a will and the various options available

Making a Will

You have four choices; you can do it yourself, you can ask your bank to help you, hire a solicitor or use a will-writing service.

Doing it yourself

Home-made wills are not generally recommended. People often use ambiguous wording which, while perfectly clear to the individual who has written it, may be less obvious to others. This could result in the donor’s wishes being misinterpreted and could also cause considerable delay in settling the estate.

The wording of a will is important, including formal revocation of any earlier wills, it’s also important to think beyond your basic wishes and address questions such as what if a beneficiary dies before you, what if you and your partner (if you have one) die together or within a short space of time of each other? Few people would start writing a will from stratch – templates are available from stationers and can be downloaded from the internet. They are not perfect, however, and still leave considerable margin for error, especially if your circumstances or your estate are complicated.

Two witnesses are needed, and an essential point to remember is that witnesses and their spouses cannot be beneficiaries of a will, so if they do witness it, they will be automatically disinherited. In certain circumstances, a will can be rendered invalid. There will also be confusion if part of a will seems to be missing, so, if you do need to change your will, it’s best to start from scratch with a new one rather than staple an amendment (called a codicil) that might become detached.

A sensible precaution for those doing it themselves is to have it checked by a solicitor, in which case it will usually be simpler and cheaper to use a solicitor from the start.

Banks

Advice on wills and the administration of estates is given by the trustee companies of most of the major high street banks. In particular, the services they offer are to provide general guidance, to act as executor and to administer the estate. They will introduce clients to a solicitor and can arrange other related advice on tax planning and financial advice.

As with using a solicitor (see below), and advantage of using a bank is that they can keep a copy of the will – plus other important documents – in their safe, avoiding the risk of these documents being mislaid or lost in, say, a house fire. However, the contract for services is between you and the bank, so after you have died, your heirs have

very little leverage to get the bank to speed up if it is taking a long time administering the estate or to control what the bank charges.

Solicitors

Solicitors are the traditional professional to use to draw up a will. You can also appoint them to act as executors and administer the estate, though as with banks this is not necessarily a good idea since your heirs will have no control over the speed or cost of the solicitor’s services in this capacity. Like banks, solicitors will also retain a copy of your will in safekeeping and most will not change for this.

If you do not have a solicitor, friends or family may be able to recommend one, or you can find a member of one of the legal professional bodies:

• The Law Society: use its Find a Solicitor service to find legal advice in England, Wales and Scotland, solicitors. lawsociety.org.uk;

• Law Society of Northern Ireland: lawsoc-ni.org/ solicitors.aspx.

A simple will could normally start at about £150. Couples sometimes make ‘mirror wills’ leaving everything on broadly the same terms, and there may be a discount for doing both at the same time. However, many solicitors take part in special schemes where they partner with charities and offer free writing of simple wills. The schemes include:

• Free Wills Month. Free Wills Month. During the campaign (March and October), people aged 55 and over can have a will written by a solicitor for free. Participating charities hope you will leave them a legacy in your will although you cannot be forced to do so.

See freewillsmonths.org.uk

• Make a Will Week. Participating solicitors write your will for free in return for you making a suggested donation to a partner charity. The week has been in May in recent years, and the charities involved advertise if they are taking part.

• National Free Wills Network is a partnership where participating charities pay for solicitors to write free wills for their supporters. Again, the hope is that you will leave a legacy to the charity, but that is up to you.

See nationalfreeewills.net • Will Aid is a partnership between solicitors and nine

See willaid.org.uk/will-makers/find-a-solicitor. The schemes work because solicitors earn extra where it turns out you need more than just a simple will or decide to buy other services. For the charities, the schemes bring in donations and legacies that exceed their outlay to the solicitors. If you make an immediate donation, you might not be saving money, but what you do spend goes to the charity you want to support. If you leave a legacy, you are in effect paying later for the will you have drawn up today, but again through a donation to the charity of your choice.

Many charities rely heavily on legacies to fund their work, and to support this they provide guidance on heir websites and can put you in touch with solicitors who may draw up a will for you at a reduced cost. Charities do this in the hope that you will include a legacy to them in your will, but they cannot make it a requirement of using their services, they do not have access to the will that you have written, and the solicitor involved is working for you not the charity.

For individuals with slight problems, the Royal National Institute of Blind People (RNIB) has produced a comprehensive guide to making or changing a will and offers a number of options, including free will writing through the National Free Wills Network. RNIB also offers a free service to transcribe your will into large print size, Braille or audio. See rnib.org.uk (the section on help writing or amending a will). Age UK is a partner in the Will Aid scheme and its website has a lot of useful information about writing a will: ageuk.org.uk

Will-writing services

A will-writing service is a sort of halfway house that is generally more reliable than a DIY will, but cheaper than a solicitor. Will-writers take you through a questionnaire to find out your needs and are trained to be able to draw up simple wills. But they are not professionally trained in the law as solicitors are and they are not regulated to the same degree, so do not use a will-writing service if your affairs are at all complex. Do make sure that any will-writer you use belongs to one of the following selfregulating bodies which requires members to abide by a code of conduct including having a formal complaints procedure and professional indemnity insurance:

• Institute of Professional Willwriters: ipw.org.uk/directory;

• The Society of Will Writers:

charities. The solicitors write your will for free, but Extract from The Good Retirement suggest a voluntary donation to Will Aid which then Guide 2020 by Kogan Page, edited by supports the work of the charities. Jonquil Lowe©

willwriters.com/members/ Legacy Yearbook 2021 page 10