Have you made a will ?

My/our finances are complex as own properties in UK and France ad dc mine from first marriage and dh has no dc of his own. However we have now after much thought and discussion agreed if I die first my 3 dc and 1 dgs will inherit a lump sum immediately and rest to dh who will leave rest to my dc after his death. If he should remarry he will leave 1/2 to my dc. If he dies first a smaller lump sum to my 3 dc and his favorite niece and rest to me. I have photographed each item of jewelry and put a name under each photo to make it easier. We have been discussing for about four months but now agreed.

My late father made a will, but it wasn't done by a solicitor so a vital codicil was left out, one which a solicitor would have warned him about. So do make a will, and do it correctly otherwise problems can arise.

GillT57 - the thing is I do not have any family - or for that matter friends.

I think it is very hard for those who have families to understand the mindset that comes with being the only one left, or having relatives so distant, you do not know who they are or if any even exist.

I am aware of one relative, who will get whatever I leave regardless assuming they outlive me. That may not be the case. As for the rest I have no interest. I wont be here. It wont bother me.

I have seen far too many wills and deaths be the cause of theft, argument and bitterness anyway.

It wont matter when you are going to die durhamjen. If the next government change the rules ( and there is a good chance of that) then inheritance will be history.

gillybob I am in your situation have no close family and have no idea what to do. So keep putting it off. The only thing I know for sure is that when my house is sold I do not want it to be sold to a Landlord at a cheap price. I would rather a young couple got it at a reasonable price but do not know if it is possible to stipulate that.

I know two people who have died recently and had no children, spouses already dead.
They both left all their money to their favourite charities.
Good idea if you have a favourite charity.
With both it was to the heart foundation in their respective countries.

What I mean, Abbey, is that it's a bit silly saying don't bother if you think you are going to die in five years time, which is what you said.
My husband died within six months.
As someone else said, you could get run over by a bus tomorrow.

durhamjen, I didnt say that but since you cannot comprehend what I did say despite my saying it, quite clearly I think, twice. I am not going to bother explaining it further.

As I understand it one political party is already suggesting this - except they are saying that in fact, there will be no in inheritance at all. What you leave behind belongs to the government regardless. So unless you are thinking your demise will be within the next five years or so, I wouldnt bother. smile

Nobody knows when they will die, do they?
Even my husband didn't and he was suffering from a degenerative disease. It wasn't that that killed him.

I agree fully with Anya and with Nemosmum. (Do people think they are immortal?) I understand that solicitors make far more money from sorting out the estates of people who die intestate, than they ever do from the estates of those who made Wills. DH & both revised our Wills over a decade ago, and did our LPAs some years later. It's a good feeling to know that these are done!

You only need to make a new will if your circumstances change, If for instance you no longer want someone named in your will to benefit, or if they predecease you.
I suppose if your executor dies before you do, you may need to alter your will or add a codicil.

If anything, property, jewellery etc. is specifically mentioned as going to A or B and you for some reason decide to give it away or sell it, then you do need to revise your will.

It's worth taking into account too, that the older we get, the greater likelihood there is of someone saying we were not in a fit state to make or re-make a will, so if dementia sets in a solicitor may be obliged to refuse to alter or draw up a will.

However, I feel we should probably all think about a power of attorney, especially if one is alone, and make sure that our nearest and dearest know whether we want to be kept on life support or not, and are willing to be organ donors or not

I have done three intestacies without any help from a solicitor. I didnt have an issue with any of them, so I would disagree.

One thing that does always intrigue me though is how parents think it is OK to treat their children unequally. I have seen it said here that some would leave their money to one child but not another because the other was already wealthy. or that they would split the money three ways so that a grandchild ( presumably the child of one of their children, the other being childless) would inherit. I find that awful.

Even though I do not have a particularly good opinion of my half brother ( the one who is will get my wealth , all other things being equal, if the government do not get it) is that I would never dream of cutting him out in favour of a charity or even a friend or someone else.

I know my father was going to leave me out of her will writing once ( he never got to writing a will fortunately from my point of view) because he thought I had done well in life and didnt need it whereas my half brother did because he had divorced twice, had a son and was strapped for cash.

I felt really terrible - bereft , that my dad ( flesh and blood) would leave me out in favour of another child . This was made worse in my case because the brother concerned was actually adopted. I had never felt animosity toward him or my parent before that ( and I am still leaving it to fate that said adopted half brother will get all) but I did feel hurt by my dads intentions. You may not realise it but leaving your worldly good represents leaving your love and approval to those of us on the receiving end. I didn't mind sharing but the possibility of losing out was hard to bear.

sorry, a couple of typo's in above - her instead of his ( cant explain that) and a whole sentence that was poorly constructed. I am sure you can make sense of it - with a little common sense.

We had an interesting experience with Heir Hunters. A friend of the family left everything in his will to us. He died at a time when we were in the middle of our own tragedy so we didn't realise for quite a while when I noticed his house was up for sale. I rang the estate agents to see if he had gone into a home but they told me that he had died intestate so Heir Hunters had found distant family who he had been estranged from. I knew he'd made a will so I rang the local solicitor and sure enough, it was there. It turned out that the Official Solicitor had looked through the paperwork at the house, gone to the house next door where the neighbours had only just arrived in the area and had decided there was no will so Heir Hunters had taken it over. The Official Solicitor charged a small fortune for this shoddy service. The distant family reckon they paid a house clearance company to clear the house of its very valuable contents. They had also emptied the bank accounts. When we informed them of our and the will's existence, one of them threatened to sue us for his wasted time. It was a complete mess. The moral of this lengthy story is to ensure you let somebody know where the will is or keep a copy in the house!

Leaving money to charities worries me. You hear stories of them rushing to get sale of property, at any price, and trying to hustle things through.

My BIL told me off for paying a solicitor to do our wills, said he and his partner had written their own and they were in a drawer in their house. I was told a while ago that wills aren`t completely legal and binding unless done with a solicitor. Was I told wrong?

A will does not need a solicitor to be valid. The forms you can buy in Smiths are excellent if your affairs are straightforward and you follow the instructions

Very interested to read all of these. Here, in mainland Europe (Germany, etc.), no-one makes wills. The law is quite definite about inheritance. When a person dies, half his estate goes to the spouse and the other half is inherited in equal parts by spouse and children. Although you can disinherit a spouse or child, it is very difficult and almost no-one bothers. Although I am a great fan of the British legal system, this seems so much easier. When my father died 7 years ago, my brother and I just signed a statement that everything was to go to my mother. When she died earlier this year, we split everything down the middle. No hassle, no arguments.

My DS is a Solicitor specialising in Wills and Probate, so the answer would be "Yes, we've made Wills"!
You don't need to have your Will done by a Solicitor, but it's a good idea if there's anything at all unusual in it.
One case that sticks in my mind was DS acting for a lady in her late nineties who had never made a Will. She had no children and wanted her entire estate to go to various charities.
She was admitted to hospital after a bad fall, and the first person she wanted notified was DS, so that she could get her Will sorted out. He worked through the night at her hospital bedside as she was so insistent that she wanted it done, signed and witnessed, "just in case". It was completed at just after 5-00 a.m. Signed, and witnessed by two nursing staff before 5-15. DS was driving home when he received a phone call from the hospital informing him that the lady in question had just died, at 6-30a.m.
If she hadn't insisted on him working through that night, 4 national charities would have lost out on their share of over 5 million quid!
It would have been a sin to give all that money to the Treasury, so thank goodness she was a determined old lady,

It's a good idea to check if your will remains valid. Not sure how true it is, but I was told wills don't change upon divorce but they do upon remarriage. So if one or both parties divorced then remarries it would be best to make sure your wishes will be upheld as you may not want your estate to go to a former partner or to a present partner. It's something I keep waning to do but have never got around to. Also worth checking through your papers for forgotten investments. I've just found some relating to investments I made in my early 20's. Might be worth something afte 30 years if I'm lucky ??

Only marriage affects a Will's validity

We have. It's equal to all our children, grandchildren and greatgrandchildren. Equal shares of what we hope is nothing left, after we spend it on our way out.

Marieeliz, I know someone who recently left his house to charity. In order to avoid the hassle of what you describe, the solicitor advised that the executors should not be responsible for selling it and passing the cash on. He said it can result in a lot of pushing and harrying and querying whether it was marketed for the right price, etc.

Instead, after a maximum period (plenty of time in this case for clearing, etc.) the keys were to be passed to the charity and it would then be up to them to have all the hassle of selling it.
Sounded v sensible to me.

How sad you feel you have nothing to want to leave to someone specual no family and no friends Abby

My mother, an intelligent woman, wrote her will but made a simple error and her will was invalid. The error? She didn't sign directly under the instructions but left a gap of about 2".

Abbey, I understand where you are coming from but is it for definite your half brother would inherit? Was he legally adopted and thereby legally next in line? For the reason you state I won't leave my d out although it is her that has left me behind but I never stopped loving her.
To all those with our families or friends, know that as you get older those you love die and you can be left aloneafter a very full life, which is so sad. I would want a charity to benefit rather than the treasury, or perhaps buy expensive equipment needed at a hospital, or if you've loads, an extra room at a hospice. So much good could be done.