DH dragging his feet re a new will.

Gosh Coco51 that is horrible. I am worried about the executors to our wills as our son and daughter don't get on and I feel our son will walk all over our daughter but we don't want to offend our son by just having our daughter.

Do be wary of appointing family members to execute your will. My brother and sister were executors for my mother’s will, have robbed and cheated me blind (criminal offences) will not pay what my mother left me seven years ago, and I cannot afford to take them to court. The police aren’t interested despite evidence of theft and fraud.
I am shocked at the extent of their greed and malice but there’s nothing I can do about it.

We have quite complicated wills now. We are divorcees with two grown up children each (been married for almost 30 years) I wanted to ensure that, should I die first, if DH remarried all my children's money could not end up with a stranger's family. Same if I should remarry. I felt strongly about this as I'd seen it first hand. It was expensive, but worth every penny to ensure our children receive what we each want. We've just altered it slightly to update Executors and add money for the GDs - it didn't involve a change to the actual wills, just a Codicil so not expensive.

Presumably you don't plan to distribute your assets when the first one of you dies? Your current wills will be 'everything to surviving spouse'. Which is what would happen anyway.

I would say executors should be the surviving spouse plus one child. There are horror stories of people making three children all executors. The outcome there is that the three cannot agree, fall out and nothing gets done for ages. Which child though? We have one child who is a lawyer so for us that was a fairly obvious and agreed choice.

Once the spouse goes then there has to be a reset. The solicitor who draws up the will keeps a copy and can help but does not have to be an executor. I think the cost is in the execution, not the drawing up of the will. In my uncle's case it was couple of hours work, then he kept the will and showed it to us after the death and we executed.

One strategy might be to get the wills done all yourself and then just ambush. Set them down in front of DH to sign with the witnesses present. A shock tactic but depends how desperate you are.

Good luck.

IMHO Far better to sit down as a family and talk everything through - say what will happen - and list possessions to be distributed and avoid solicitors like the plague and appoint two or all children as executors. I know one family with simple equal distribution , simple probate, yet got ripped off thousands by solicitor for very little work. Another two clients of mine were charged £600 by solicitor to look over a perfectly simply will ??

Just get an appointment at a solicitors and he will probably go along. If not, go yourself and get some advice. If he's allergic to spending money, tell him it would cost a fortune to have a solicitor handle it which would penalise the children. Would strongly advise you to draw up and register Lasting Powers of Attorney for 1.Health and Welfare, and 2. Property and Affairs for each of you, with your sons as Attorneys (jointly and severally). You just never know when you may be incapacitated by illness and unable to deal with your bills, bank etc. You will feel much happier once you've done that, knowing everything is in hand.

I think you can have a maximum of 4 executors - I wanted 5, my sister and brother-in-law and my 2 nephews and 1 niece, but that was too many. I explained in the will saying that if I'd been able to have 5 the younger nephew would have been one, as I didn't want him to think that he had been deliberately left out. Having so many means that I am covered if one or more of them die before me.

Just wondering why you want your children as exectutors? Much easier to get a solicitor to do the legal stuff even for a simple will.

Because the solicitor will charge - a lot if they can.

So sensible to just have the children as executors - providing they are old enough. My stepmother was advised to use solicitors and it cost the estate thousands of pounds - and she was by no means rich!

We are in the process of doing the same thing. I just want the solicitors to be our executors as there is a lot of estrangement around at the home on my husbands side of the family. Not good.

I asked my parents to use a solicitor, not make a DIY will (as they intended) with a Post Office form. They were advised to change ownership of their house to tenants in common from joint tenants so if Father had to go into care (he was blind) if Mother died first only half the house could be taken by the local authority. They died some six months later within a week of each other. The new will also meant we saved some £30k Inheritance Tax. I was an executor with my father's friend. The legal advice was an excellent investment.

Just wondering why you want your children as exectutors? Much easier to get a solicitor to do the legal stuff even for a simple will. Dad's solkcitor just did the legal stuff - we had to provide all the financial and legal papers to him and he did everything. Obviously the physical sorting out the house contents and personal effects was left to the heirs.

We didn't have conpletely new wills drawn up but our solicitor updated them as the DC were of age and could become executors. We did this during Will Aid week too.
We did visit their office to do this but it was very easy.

I realised my executors were older than me so re wrote my will with a solicitor during Will Aid week! My daughter is the executor but she can call on the solicitor if she needs to! All will are now kept as copies in a centralised place so they can be found easily !! Best to keep things separate and simple I think !!

We are in the process of doing ours again. Second time round for both of us although been together for over 20 yrs! Our children from each marriage are grown up + DgC now too .DH is executor of his mother’s Will and if he dies before her everything goes to his children. He is basically estranged and so is she from these children. We have had to think very carefully regarding this situation. We have employed a solicitor who gave us good advice. Where would you want your money to go if you died yesterday. Circumstances change and when they do update your will. It is far easier and quicker now than it was. It’s a bit like doing a codacil. You don’t need to change the whole Will. Re executors we have chosen my children and the son of a family friend who is a little older than our children. His father had been our executor before but as he is bit older than us there’s a chance that he might die too! Just being realistic.

My mother made me executor of her will, sadly my brothers were not happy with what she left to them and blame me for it saying it was all down to me, now only one of my four brothers talk to me and that’s only because he needs me to do things for him, it’s so sad as we were such a close family

Men are notorious for not wanting to deal with wills. Mabe it's the end outcome they can not face. Women are more practical!!

We update our wills regularly as things constantly change. We have named the children as executors.

I didn't think a handwritten will was valid any.more
Best to check

Write a draft of what you want then give it to your DH to read through and amend.

Tell him it simply has to be attended to NOW for your peace of mind.

Most of us do tend to drag our feet about making or changing our will - we don't like being confronted with our mortality, after all.

CAB can tell you whether you need more than one excecutor.

We need to update ours as no grandchildren were around.
Son is the executor and sole beneficiary. However if husband son and I died it all goes to charity. So that needs to change now and include the next generation.
Son is going to be our POA and guardianship holder as well.
There is only him

We recently updated ours for the same reasons - had made them ages ago, long before any Gdcs we wanted to include.

We just rewrote them, using much of the same wording as in the solicitor-prepared originals, but with additions and replacement executors, i.e. dds instead of siblings.

This was not long after the beginning of the first lockdown (what if we both died of the virus??)

We we lucky to have neighbours willing to act as witnesses - out of doors and socially distanced - with the wills on a folding table between us!

We have named both dds as joint and several executors, i.e they can act alone or together, as they choose. Makes it easier in practice, since both would not need to be present to sign anything. Dh has been an executor several times so well aware of PITA factors when it can be quite enough of a hassle anyway.

Thanks for all the replies. Will be ringing a firm of solicitors later today. DH has agreed to come along if I sort it all.

Just to clarify, my brother paid for the POA but the will update was added on free!