Wills

I'm very tempted to at least get it down on paper what my wishes are.
It's just my "property" being fairly split, for now.

I have written my own will. It is simple, everything I have to be shared between my five children. Clauses inserted to say what would happen should any of them pre-decease me. Also just one clause for an amount to be kept to give each of my eight g.children a sum of money either upon my death or upon achieving their 25th birthdays (whichever is the later).

It is simple, and watertight. Each of my children have a copy of it. It has been dated and witnessed. Original kept in file with all deeds, etc. for my flat.

The only time a will may cause a problem is if there someone out there who might object to what it contains. My two eldest children have been named as Executors, and there is no-one else with any sort of entitlement to what I have.

No need to spend money on solicitors, etc if will really is simple. My parents also did their own, naming me as their only recipient. No problem at all arose.

I echo MOnica’s advice. So easy to make a mistake and be blissfully unaware of it. And if you are leaving everything to one person your will needs to make provision for where your money is to go in the event that that person sadly dies before you.

The pitfalls are numerous.Wills need to be worded very carefully and their meaning must be clear without doubt. You may read the will you have written and every thing in it may be crystal clear and unassailable to you, but someone else could see an entirely different meaning in what you have written.

If you use the charity route, the charity will not write the will, a solicitor, who has volunteered to write wills for no cost for anyone who leaves money to the charity in the will, will write it.

I would never contemplate writing the simplest of wills, without using a solicitor.

As for when there is 2 or may be 3, 4 or more wills. A properly drawn up will, will always revoke all previous wills, so problem solved, previous wills do not count.

Read Middlemarch by George Eliot, to see what can happen when there are many wills.

Any advice is appreciated... I now find myself having to make a Will. Can I do this myself? I don't have that much really, but would like my daughter to be sole beneficiary. I have been researching on the Internet on how to write a Will. I note that some charities offer Will writing in return for a donation - which I would rather do than pay a solicitor. Would appreciate comments/observations on any pitfalls when writing own Will. Many thanks for your time.

Slightly off the subject but I would advise that one should always use a solicitor when writing a well rather than a will writing company. If anything goes wrong a solicitor is regulated by the Law Society, will writers are unregulated. I have an acquaintance whose father used a will writer and details have still not been finalised after twelve years.

When administering a will, you are required to register it with the Probate Registry - and it is theoretically at this point that conflicting wills might come to light.
However, I think there are a lot of loopholes and odd things that happen so it's not always so.
I'm afraid that your MiL may not have told the grand-daughter for exactly the reason you give!
I would definitely step back - and although you don't need solicitors to execute a will, your FiL may like to get them to send her a letter.
Without knowing the GD though, I think anyone would be upset if they believed they were left something in a will, then told it was not the case.

I thought as much!

V3ra I thought that but apparently there isn’t it would certainly be useful.

Germanshephermum as you say a salutary lesson. We are lucky in knowing the other firm especially as there are some shall I say issues concerning the granddaughter I expect once she knows there is another will there will be fireworks

No.

Is there a register of when people's wills were made with the dates recorded?

Something like the Land Registry I suppose where you can see a record of each time a property was sold.

It might be useful.

A salutary lesson to actually destroy the old will after making the new one to avoid confusion.

Thanks we are in an odd situation as with two different law firms we were concerned that each firm if instructed could both start work without realising about each other. Luckily now that we are aware there was a much older will we can inform the original firm that their will is revoked. It is only by
chance that we found out about it and the granddaughter was likely to try to proceed with the copy she had as it left everything to her

Presumably the two solicitors would have to get together to verify which is the most recent will.

They wouldn't know. They don't need to know. But the later one will contain a standard clause revoking all previous wills.