Own Hand written Will in plain English

That’s good,

Thanks, GSM, for quite separate reasons she is going to rewrite it and will use a solicitor.

She’d better contact them pdq to get the original. If it were a solicitors’ firm the Law Society would appoint another law firm to take custody of papers but these will writing firms are unregulated.

A friend has just been informed that the will making company she used is closing down. She has no idea what will happen to her will, lodged with them.

Fortunately she has a copy - but not the original.

It’s an unregulated will writing company effalump. Please don’t try it!

Try this one but be quick.
www.sovereignplanning.co.uk/localwills/?sid=110667119&msclkid=d1ed179c7a5011047a4d744e08fbbf9f

A lot of charities work with solicitors pro bono, and ask either for a reasonable donation or a bequest in the will. As so many folk have said, it's a good idea to get it legally drawn up, and if possible register it with a solicitor. My late mother in law had told us many times that her and her husband's joint will bequeathed everything to my husband and his son, her only child and grandchild. When her husband died, the will had mysteriously disappeared, and his long estranged son got everything.

Germanshepherdsmum

Norah

Whether you need a will if you have little of monetary value depends on what your estate is worth and what the assets consist of. It used to be the case that you didn’t need a probated will to distribute an estate worth not more than £5k but that figure may have changed. If only cash in the bank is involved, many banks will release the deceased’s money to the next of kin on proof of death, but they all have their own rules on how much they will release without seeing a probated will. People also need to consider who their next of kin is for the purposes of distributing an intestate estate - there are strict rules as to the order of participation. If for instance you have no spouse or children but have more than one sibling you may favour one in particular but they will be equally entitled. If you have no close family then make a will leaving what you have to a friend or to charity - otherwise it will go to distant relatives (minus the cost of tracing them) or to the Crown. Charities are grateful for the smallest of gifts.

As to whether you could fill in a printed will form, yes you could but whether you end up with a valid will depends on whether you have completely understood the accompanying instructions, filled in and signed the will entirely in accordance with them, and expressed your wishes clearly and unambiguously. You might think that what you’ve written is crystal clear because you knew what you meant when writing it. Someone looking at your will after you have died might consider that your wishes are capable of more than one interpretation. It’s a fact that we recognise others’ mistakes more readily than our own. Don’t risk it for the sake of paying a solicitor to make sure your will says what you mean it to.

I'd assumed there was an 'estate worth' below which people needed no will and no solicitor. I'd hate to think anyone felt they couldn't use a hand written will in a very low asset situation.

We didn't have wills the first 5 yrs married, for example.

You always answer so well and clearly. Thank you for explaining.

We have dealt with the estates of 4 sets of relatives and have never listed and valued every individual item.

We do dabble at the bottom end of the antique market and go to auctions regularly, but we just highlighted and photographed, any item that could possibly have a value ( a wedgewood dinner service for example, which theoretically should be of significant value but isn't because they are out of fashion.) We checked ebay for valuations of similar items and printed them out, then did estimates for the theoretical value of everything else. £500 for all the contents of a kitchen, which was a gross overestimate bcause everything went to the tip or a chairty shop.

Providing you put in a figure looks reasonable, there will not be any queries. I think we put a figure like £5,000 as the value of the contents of my parents large 2 bedroomed bungalow. It was a gross over estimate , but £5,000 one way or another, was not going to make much difference to the amount of inheritance tax we paid.

1 tin opener
2 colanders
1 whisk
2 wooden spoons …

No way!

We’ve appointed our solicitor as executor as neither my OH or I have any close relatives and do not feel we can ask any of our friends to take on responsibility.

GSM sorry

Thanks FSM

No, I doubt the estate was above the inheritance tax level but I don't know for sure. It was something he said he had to do, I thought he said the solicitor had said it was necessary to list everything.

Always, not also.

No, he doesn’t have to go to those lengths! He does however need to put a value on the estate for the purpose of paying inheritance tax. In the absence of things like antiques, silver, jewellery and paintings it’s a sad fact that most of our household stuff has little monetary value and is destined for the charity shop or skip. He can ask a local valuer to give him a ‘probate valuation’ (which is also on the low side) and the fee will come out of the estate.

Ps there was a will, I think dividing the assets after the house sale between the siblings.

Germanshepherdsmum
May I ask a question.
A friend's father died about three years ago, his mother the year previously.
Friend was named as executor and the estate was to be divided between him and his siblings.
He said he had to list every item in the house as part of his duties as executor and get them valued. They were just normal household items, not antiques.
Is this part of his legal duties as executor?

I thought they could have just divided the house contents and personal items between themselves amicably.

They might be legal but they can leave problems as we well know.

No doubt many people have DIY wills which are legal as they've followed the correct procedure and all turns out well, but in addition to the document itself what I was paying a solicitor for was her legal advice, also her experience so she was able to ask if I'd thought of this or that.

Norah

Whether you need a will if you have little of monetary value depends on what your estate is worth and what the assets consist of. It used to be the case that you didn’t need a probated will to distribute an estate worth not more than £5k but that figure may have changed. If only cash in the bank is involved, many banks will release the deceased’s money to the next of kin on proof of death, but they all have their own rules on how much they will release without seeing a probated will. People also need to consider who their next of kin is for the purposes of distributing an intestate estate - there are strict rules as to the order of participation. If for instance you have no spouse or children but have more than one sibling you may favour one in particular but they will be equally entitled. If you have no close family then make a will leaving what you have to a friend or to charity - otherwise it will go to distant relatives (minus the cost of tracing them) or to the Crown. Charities are grateful for the smallest of gifts.

As to whether you could fill in a printed will form, yes you could but whether you end up with a valid will depends on whether you have completely understood the accompanying instructions, filled in and signed the will entirely in accordance with them, and expressed your wishes clearly and unambiguously. You might think that what you’ve written is crystal clear because you knew what you meant when writing it. Someone looking at your will after you have died might consider that your wishes are capable of more than one interpretation. It’s a fact that we recognise others’ mistakes more readily than our own. Don’t risk it for the sake of paying a solicitor to make sure your will says what you mean it to.

I would urge you to get your will done by a solicitor. My husband and I did ours for ‘no cost’ at a solicitor as part of a charity scheme. A donation (of our choice) will be taken from our estate and given to one of the participating charities. It’s written in the will. The donation can be a small, token amount - ours will be £50 from each of us. I can’t remember what the scheme was called but you can probably Google it. It was DEFINITELY worth it! Our affairs are very straightforward - only one AC & two GC - but the solicitor came up with key points that we hadn’t thought of. For instance what if your AC pre-deceases you? Who will inherit your estate then? It actually took a weight off my mind when we’d done it, knowing it was all correct. As others have said on this thread, writing your will isn’t something to ‘skimp’ on and, via the charity scheme, it can be done for minimal cost, which can be taken from your estate, so no up-front cost at all.

Someone we know planned to leave the two houses (inc. their residence of 20 odd years) which he owned outright, to a charity, with the proviso that his wife could live in either for X years. Yes, I was utterly 😱, but that’s beside the point here. I knew this because he’d been open about it to dh, who was going to be executor.

The sol. told him to leave the actual houses to the charity, not the proceeds of the sales, because otherwise the widow would get endless hassle from the charity - why hadn’t they sold yet, why hadn’t they sold for more money, etc.

TBH that’s something I’d never have thought of. So this sort of bequest must be more common than I’d imagined.

Though eventually, some months after he died, the widow did get a letter from the charity, saying basically, ‘Oh, by the way, it’d be much easier for us if you could just sell the house yourself and give us the money.’

As if the widow didn’t have enough to cope with! I’m pleased to say that dh wrote back, telling them in somewhat more polite language, to eff off.

Shortly before he died the bloke did make the smaller house over to his wife, and she was left comfortably off, but we’d had no idea beforehand how much cash there’d be, since he was notoriously tight with money. I was still 😱 about that will, though.

I agree absolutely with Germanshepherds mum's very first statement. My DH was a solicitor and he despaired of the mess made by DIY wills. Lots of charities have will weeks which are always worth looking out for.

The problem is Norah that we all unconsciously make assumptions about what things mean. We can write a sentence that seems basic simple and correct to us, but anyone coming from outside can put an entirely different meaning on it.

The classic example is the use of personal pronouns, someone mentions names in different contexts and then writes a sentence using 'she' or 'he' or 'they'. The will writer knows exactly which he, she or they they mean. But when someone comes to read it later, especially someone who doesn't know the testator, it is not exactly clear who he, she or they are. They are probably person A, but it could just be person B.

So when you die, unless you get on well with everyone, and the ncest people turn nasty if money is in question, your descendants will be in court arguing it out.

It is not the blindingly obvious mistakes in complicated cases that clutter the courts, it is the tiny thing missed or the three words that are not entirely clear in otherwise simple wills that end up with half the estate going out in legal fees.

There is a free will writing service offered by solicitors during November. Their services are free and all you have to do is make a donation to charity. Most of the major charities are part of this scheme. Win win - you get a free will and your charity benefits,