×
Two Together: Save £100!
Save £100 when you purchase two funeral plans together. Call us for more details.
Two Together: Save £100!
Save £100 when you purchase two funeral plans together. Call us for more details.
Writing a will is one of those momentous admin tasks, like planning our own funeral, which many of us may find daunting. And yet, all of us seem to understand the importance of writing a will instinctively. Writing a will is important for things like avoiding intestacy, protecting our loved ones, and controlling the distribution of our assets. In this article, we will discuss all of those elements of will writing, and more, helping you to see how the task of writing a will can be done, and where it fits with end-of-life planning more generally.
Naturally, before we begin, it’s important to remember that, if you need support with writing a will, or if you have any questions, then the best thing to do is seek relevant legal advice. Please also bear in mind that, due to the two separate legal systems, how your assets are impacted and how the law intervenes could be different depending on whether you live in England and Wales, or in Scotland. In general, in this article, we will focus on what happens in England and Wales.
A will, put simply, is a legal document which we can write in order to outline our end-of-life wishes formally. It is an essential element of end-of-life planning, and we use it to declare our final intentions on a whole range of things: Who our executors should be (which of our loved ones or trusted agents should take charge of our estate when we’re no longer here); where our assets should go; whether we want any donations to be made to charity; and even what kind of funeral we want. We can make certain aspects of our will legally binding by following certain steps. And, in writing a will, we can spare our family all kinds of hassle (and internal disputes) when they go to pick up the pieces after we’re gone.
The importance of writing a will not only concerns the settlement of our own intentions and the declaration of our final wishes, but it also helps to avoid some big negative consequences for those we leave behind.
Intestacy (dying ‘intestate’) is what happens when someone dies without a will. Should we die intestate, whilst it’s not impossible for our family to execute our estate and to administer our assets, it does make it much more complicated. As part of writing a will, you will name the executor(s) of your estate (whose agreement it would be a good idea to secure in advance). Under normal circumstances, they will apply for probate (the legal right to execute your estate), which is already complicated enough. If there is no will, they instead have to follow a more complex process.
In short, in such a situation, intestacy laws will apply in England and Wales. These laws divide up the assets of our estate among our family according to whether they are married, and whether they have children or other dependants. They are over 100 years old, and as such, don’t take into account the often much more varied and complicated social reality of our current day and age, vis-a-vis blended families and the like. The self-appointed executors will need to apply for a “grant of Letters of Administration”.
The end result of this means that the property of someone who has died intestate is often unevenly divided among surviving children, on the basis of outdated social presumptions. This can, naturally, lead to legal disputes and familial tension.
Wills are not just important for financial matters; you can use them to appoint an official guardian for your children, after you’re gone. If you’re leaving behind young children, this could be a good idea, to help provide them with a sense of stability and security. Make sure you’ve thought at length about your choice, as, should they accept, their new guardian will assume all parental rights and responsibilities over them.
Apart from this, in your will, you can apportion your assets according to the needs of your dependants and children. If you feel that one child may need more financial support than another, perhaps because they are younger or have particular needs, then you can make provision for this in your will. Intestacy laws may step in to prevent this if you die without a will.
Generally speaking, your will allows you to specify how you want your assets to be distributed. Not just among your children and extended family, but also towards any charitable or local causes about which you are especially passionate. Indeed, according to the UK Government website, your estate can pay a reduced inheritance-tax rate of 36% on certain assets, if you leave 10% or more of the will’s net value to charity. It means that a will can also allow you to maximise the amount you leave behind for your family. Naturally, you can amend your will as many times as you see fit, taking into account changes in your own financial position, or those of your family and dependants.
You can use your will to protect your family home. You can ensure that your property goes to your intended beneficiaries; manage shared ownership of your home among beneficiaries; and address mortgage and financial liabilities.
If you are a homeowner, it’s likely the most valuable asset which you own. It means that listing who will inherit the family home (and any other properties you own) is likely the most important part of any will. Therefore, any provisions relating to what happens to it need to be expressed as clearly as possible – especially around beneficiary names – to avoid conflict and confusion among those we leave behind.
How you leave your property behind will depend on whether you are the sole owner, or one of two joint-owners, and whether the joint-owners each possess an equal share of the property. The simplest situation is when you are the sole owner, and the mortgage is fully paid off. In this case, the house is simply left as an asset for whichever beneficiary you choose, and they can do as they see fit with it.
If you are part of a couple, and you are joint home-owners of a fully paid-off home, should you die, your partner will automatically inherit the ownership of the house. If you want to make sure that someone who doesn’t own the property can still benefit from it, by living in it, for example, you might want to set up what’s called a ‘Property Trust’, which can offer more protection than a conventional will. Property Trusts are often used by people who want to head-off problems which they foresee arising out of the fact that they are in their second marriage; they have children from a previous marriage; or to protect the interests of their children should their surviving spouse decide to remarry and have more children.
If you haven’t yet paid off your mortgage, should you leave the property to anyone in your will, they will normally inherit it along with its associated debt. This means that, if they want to continue to own it, they will need to take on the responsibility of paying the mortgage (assuming a mortgage assessment has found them to be capable of doing this). In a situation where this isn’t possible, they can sell the property, ultimately receiving the net proceeds after the mortgage has been fully paid off.
Of course, if you are in a position to have an outstanding mortgage settled via other assets at your disposal, so that your children can fully inherit the property, you can also make provision for this in your will.
There are plenty of common misconceptions about the importance of writing a will. People tend to worry that they don’t have enough assets to make it worth their while; that they are too young to bother; or that it’s too complicated or expensive.
Wills are not just for the wealthy. Even if your assets are modest, it is still worth issuing a final view on how they should be apportioned in order to help your family to avoid tension. But, your will doesn’t have to just be about financial matters. If there are sentimental or valuable possessions you’d like to take account of, then your will could be the place to do it. You can even use it to notify your family about the existence of your funeral plan, and to make sure your family has a clear idea of your funeral preferences.
Whilst preferences about funerals, such as those in line with the different beliefs on death and funerals in religion, are not legally binding if they are placed in a will, they give your family a clear idea of how to honour your memory and your wishes.
It’s never too early to write a will (nor to plan your own funeral, for that matter); the sooner we start to think about these matters, the sooner we can live out the rest of our days with a peace of mind that can’t otherwise be obtained. It always pays to be prepared, and, in any case, even if you need to amend or alter matters later in life to take account of changing circumstances, it’s always easier to do this than to start from scratch.
A will is a weighty document with a great deal of significance, but it doesn’t mean that it has to be overly complicated, or even particularly expensive. There are lots of different simple templates for will writing available online, and relatively affordable services for making them legally binding. Due to the tax benefits available to you, and the financial benefits available to them, many charities provide support with the writing of wills on their website.
Companies often offer the option of an online service, which is cheaper, or a phone consultation, which is a bit more expensive. Of course, you can also discuss matters with your local solicitor’s office, or even your bank. With that said, the services of a solicitor will likely be significantly more expensive than other options.
The most important elements of will writing concern the following: naming your executor(s); specifying the beneficiaries of your assets; making specific bequests; and addressing debts and liabilities.
Working out how to choose an executor – assessing the capability and willingness to do the job of those you leave behind – is a longer process than you might expect. Before naming them in your will, you will have to think hard about whom you can trust to carry out the responsibility of administering your estate according to your wishes. Whilst you don’t need their legal consent to name them as such, given the burden of the responsibility it entails, it would be polite and sensible to check with them first to see if they are comfortable.
When you die, the person (or people) you name as your executor will need to apply for probate (the legal right to administer your estate and apportion your assets accordingly), along with a whole host of other admin, such as registering your death. Once probate is granted, they will then see to the execution of your wishes, alongside other matters like filing a final accounting of your assets and paying inheritance tax. As such, they will need to be a competent and trustworthy person.
If you want a certain person to receive an amount of money or a portion of your property, then you will need to name them specifically. Include in your will their:
It’s important to keep the contact information up to date so that beneficiaries can be easily located when the time comes.
Wills can also be used to make specific bequests, rather than just a general allocation of your assets. Items and possessions of great sentimental importance can be passed down officially and unequivocally to different members of your family, such as pieces of furniture which have been in the family for generations, or a piano or guitar that has had pride of place, for instance. You can also name certain charities in your will, too, if you’d like to make a final donation to a cause that was dear to you in life.
For debts which need to be settled, you can also provide instruction for how to use the estate for this purpose. This can help your family to avoid stress and uncertainty, as well as unnecessarily taking on the burden of debts themselves.
In order for your will to be legally binding, whether it’s from the most affordable template online, or from the most expensive estate lawyer in the world, in England and Wales it needs to be signed by you, and your signing of the document needs to be witnessed by two other people. Those two people can’t be beneficiaries named in the will, otherwise they won’t be able to receive whatever it is you intend to leave them. If these steps are not adhered to, the legality of your will can be contested in court by those you leave behind, and it can cause families to experience tension and acrimony.
The importance of writing a will is really about the benefits which you can get for yourself and others. You can secure peace of mind for yourself and for your family that you’ve thought about what you want to happen; you can thereby prevent family disputes after you’re gone; and you can support causes which you care about.
Perhaps the biggest benefit – and one it has in common with funeral plans – is that writing a will is a great way to give yourself true peace of mind, and to bestow it upon those you leave behind. Those who’ve written a will know that they’ve tied up all the loose ends: they’ve given an account of their assets and wishes; they’ve selected a trusted person to execute their will; and they’ve made the relevant people aware of where their will is located.
Meanwhile, their family can also breathe a sigh of relief that the possibility of disputes has been preemptively closed, and that everyone can focus on enjoying life without worry. They can also be sure that, when the time comes, there is a clear plan, as well as a person or group of people to execute it.
Even if your family comes to disagree over what you’ve written in your will, it will serve as an unambiguous account of what you wanted to happen. In that sense, assuming your family agrees with your thinking, it will head-off the possibility of rival interpretations of who has the right to what when you’re no longer around to judge for yourself. For this reason, it is essential that your wording is as clear as possible: if you want to bequeath a car to your son, make sure to specify the make and model of the car, and even to include the registration number, to make it unequivocal. The same standard applies to all other bequests you want to make.
The real risk to families, however, is the possibility of a parent dying without a will in place. It can be hard enough to cope with the death of a parent, say, or the unexpected death of a loved one from whom we stand to inherit something, without also needing to worry about whether there is a clear record of their wishes. All too often, families who should be dealing with their grief are instead snarled up in protracted (and often depressing) conversations about money and property. Having a will in place is a clear way of preventing this kind of disagreement from occurring at all.
A will is a great place to include your wishes about what charities you would like to donate to, out of the value of your estate. Not only does this give you the chance to make a final donation to causes you support, but, depending on the amount you donate, you could reduce the inheritance tax which is due on certain assets in your estate for your family.
The hardest part of writing a will is to get started. You can begin by assessing your assets and liabilities; consulting a professional; and, if you’ve already written one a while ago, you can review it and make sure it is still relevant to you and your estate and interests.
It can be difficult for your family to find lost or dormant assets belonging to you after you’re gone, especially if they are operating from a position of ignorance about your affairs. Deciding to write a will means that you are going to have to think about what assets you have: savings in different bank accounts (you may also want to think about what happens to bank accounts when you die); investments or shares in your name; over-50s life insurance policies; property, and so on. You will also need to take account of any debts that your estate is likely to incur, to make sure that your family is aware of this, and to preemptively lessen or remove their burden, if you can.
When writing a will, you can seek a bespoke service with expert guidance, which will come at a significant cost. Or you can find simpler, more streamlined and mainstream services which are often available online at low-cost. Depending on the size of your estate, or the complexity of your bequests (or indeed, the size of your family), you may wish to seek specific legal advice about how to draft a watertight wall that truly achieves what you want it to.
Following major life changes, such as the birth of children or grandchildren, or following marriages and divorces, it is prudent to review your last will. This will allow you to ensure that it is still an accurate reflection of your wishes. If it is not, you can amend it in good time. Similarly, if you are leaving items or movable property to your family, such as a musical instrument or a car, make sure to specify the make and model; this way you can check to make sure that this information is still correct, if, for example, you have bought a new car in recent years.
We hope you have found this article on the importance of writing a will useful and instructive. As the top-rated national provider of ‘Cremation Services’ on Trustpilot with a score of 4.9/5 stars, we see it as our mission to promote awareness of all elements of the end-of-life planning process, of which writing a will is a big part.
If you’re interested in getting a funeral plan together for the end of your life, Aura would be delighted to assist you. Feel free to compare Aura funeral plans with other leading plans and get in touch, or perhaps you’d like to request a free brochure that could answer your funeral-planning questions? If so, you can do so by clicking the link below. We are ready and willing to help should you need anything. We also offer our direct cremation services to those requiring support imminently, so whatever your funeral needs, we are able to help.
Our brochure includes all the details you need surrounding our prepaid direct cremation funeral plans.
Get your free brochure sent by email or First Class post by clicking on the link below.
