Q. Why should I make a Will?
A. Because it is the most important document of your life! If you are 18 or over and have assets e.g. a property, personal possessions, savings, pension benefits etc. (collectively known as your “estate”) then you should make a Will which will dispose of these assets when you die.
You won’t be around to do this yourself so in your Will you appoint someone to carry out your wishes on your behalf and this person is known as your Executor. Your Executor will distribute your estate to your nominated beneficiaries i.e. the people who are to benefit.
In your Will
- you choose your executors and beneficiaries
- you set out your funeral wishes
- you can provide for your spouse or partner
- you can provide for children/step children
- you appoint guardians
- you can include powers to run a business
- you can carry out Inheritance Tax planning if you are a married couple/civil partners (current threshold £325,000).
Many people will attempt to write their own wills and this can result in disaster! Sometimes homemade Wills fail to appoint an executor or fail to dispose of all the assets of the person who has died. Others include too much detail and have to be unraveled to discover the true intentions of the deceased and can lead to expensive court proceedings.
Most Wills will be simple and straightforward perhaps leaving everything to your spouse or partner and then on to children, at a specified age, or other family members. Of course they can be more complicated as everybody’s needs are different. People with step-children issues may want to protect assets for their own children; some will want Wills incorporating trusts for vulnerable beneficiaries and others will require full-blown Inheritance tax planning Wills. These issues should never be tackled by an unqualified layperson - far better to consult a lawyer who will give you proper advice and draw up a Will for a reasonable fee reflecting your needs and wishes.
Q What happens to my estate if I don’t make a Will?
A. It has been estimated that about half the population of England and Wales die intestate i.e. without making a Will. As a result their property falls to be dealt with in accordance with the law of intestate succession (the Administration of Estates Act 1925 as amended). This Statute sets out an order of entitlement to the deceased person’s estate and the relatives who may benefit are as follows:
- spouse/civil partner
- issue (i.e. children or remoter descendants)
- parent(s)
- brother(s) or sister(s) of the whole blood or their issue
- brother(s) or sister(s) of the half blood or their issue
- grandparent(s)
- uncle(s) or aunt(s) of the whole blood or their issue
- uncle(s) or aunt(s) of the half blood or their issue
The question of who takes what depends upon the size of the estate and which, if any, of the above group of relatives are living at the time of the intestate’s death. Here are some common examples:
- Single Person— estate passes to next of kin in the order above. If there are no relatives the estate passes to the State.
- Married Couples/Civil partners with children — surviving spouse/civil partner receives personal effects, a fixed net sum of £250,000 with interest from the date of death, and a life interest in half the balance of the remaining estate. Subject to this the residuary estate is held on statutory trusts for the issue.
- Married Couple/Civil partners without children — surviving spouse/civil partner receives personal effects, a fixed net sum of £450,000 with interest as above and half the remainder. Next of kin (in the order above) receive the other half. If there are no relatives, the whole estate passes to the surviving spouse/civil partner.
- Co-habitants— receive no benefit at all on an intestacy but have to make a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
Dying intestate can result in horrendous consequences for a spouse or a partner, and it is not uncommon to hear of estates passing to distant relatives the deceased didn’t even know existed!