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I am single and don't have much but have made a will to leave everything to my only son.
I did, a few years ago, inherit a relatively small amount of money from my "aunt"/godmother. That cash injection was so very welcome.

I am a chartered accountant who is qualified (through extra training and an exam) to offer probate services. Was inspired after doing my father's estate and discovering just how much the rip off lawyers charged him to do my mother's - £2,500+VAT for an estate of £85,000 . Dad was brilliant about record keeping so the admin, though a bit complex, was relatively easy to deal with.

Notes: my mother died 23 years before my father but I was still able to use the same fraction of her tax free allowance as had been unused on her death against dad's estate;

Similarly her deemed allowance for the family home (dad was living in his own home when he died).

So that meant I actually had £325k + £300k + £150k + £150k to offset Dad's's estate: no tax was payable.

Some estate agents will let you put a house on the market before probate is granted. Ours wouldn't!

When my mum passed away she lived in a rented bungalow and had £2500 in the bank. I live 200 miles away and consequently my sister had looked after her for her final few months. I only felt it right for her to inherit all that she had.

After years of being estranged from my large family my father died but I wasn't told until the day of the funeral(which I discreetly attended) two years later my mother died and she had made a will but had to change it following my brothers death who was POA.Even though she had kept me out of the will she hadn't signed it so it was deemed intestate, therefore by law I was entitled to a share,after hours of pondering wether to sign and accept I was told I had no choice but to sign so that it could be ended and my siblings could get their share.
I finally did and gave the money to my children who had also been left out of the will

I do worry about my best friend - single with an estate likely to be worth £1m. She is 74 . I know she has a Will and believe my son (her godson) is a beneficiary along with her other godson,
As her threshold before IHT will be £325,000 I worry she will let 40% of the balance go to taxman. But I don’t feel I can raise with her obviously - the gifting idea or whatever she should do (7 years before dies). Ah well shame but maybe in time
she will get some advice - she is a young 74 add hates to think getting old. Money always a sensitive issue

When my husband was dying I sorted out my will. I have talked to my kids about everything even though they kept telling me to shut up they didnt want to talk about it. I have even spoken to them about organ donation. I really dont think inheritance tax wll be an issue I have looked into everything lossing your husband makes you get everyything in order.

I received an inheritance from my mum when she died. It enabled me to keep my house and pay off enough of my mortgage to make it affordable as I was going through divorce at the time.
I have talked informally with my adult children about my plans, first to downsize, then to help them with deposits to buy their own homes. Both are currently renting so hopefully that will help them onto the housing ladder and reduce the likelihood of a big IHT bill as long as I live long enough for the gifts not to count. It should also enable me to enjoy a few nice holidays now I'm retired if we are ever able to travel again. Sigh!

My Mum died intestate in 2019, and my brother who was originally in the register, but removed himself claims he should get the entire estate; and we 3 sisters should get nothing. He took out business loans against the property twice which Mum ended up paying off. He has prevented us selling the property, keeps saying he will take us to court but doesn't and just seems to want to delay the impossible. Mum drafted a will (under his control) 26 years ago, but never signed it. Causing major emotional stress for us.

I nursed Mum through various cancers, lived with her on and off over 7 years, but because of him and his lies she seems to have been forgotten...and the entire family has split. All so sad, over a relatively small I heritance

I inherited shares from my grandmother 30 years ago.

When my mother died she left instructions and her sister and nephews were left small amounts the rest went to her new husband.
Father used to update his will regularly. All to be shared between myself and brother.
After confronting him 20 years ago re him sexually / physically abusing me I no longer had to see him. I did this to protect my nieces. Brother then became ‘close’ with him although previously had avoided contact with him.
Father died about 3-4 years ago (was not important to me) 6 weeks later my (3) girls received FB messages from brother telling them they had been left £2500 in father’s will.
I recently saw copy of said will written 6 years ago and all 5 grandchildren received £2,500 and brother the rest. I have never seen a probate record.
The will was literally one sheet of paper signed by witnesses but no names or addresses.
I really am 50/50 torn between not caring/wanting anything and why the hell should I suffer again.

I own our house. DH is adamant my girls inherit but I have percentaged it so when the time comes to share estate his 2 children will receive 5% each. Husband to continue to live here unless he remarries. He is 12 years younger than me.
His will compliments mine.

My parents are in their 90s, live at home and I have power of attorney (not yet activated). I will inherit quite a large sum of money and a house worth approx £400,000 (half of the house from whichever parent I lose first). I don’t know what’s in their wills as they are unwilling to share that information but they have indicated that I am the main beneficiary. My brother who shared POA was removed a few years ago from that and the will because he treated our parents very badly. They are terrified of going into care and having their savings eaten up by fees but I don’t know if there’s anything they can do to avoid that (if they do need to go into care) apart from insurance which, at this late stage, would maybe be prohibitively expensive. So we keep on keeping on....

Two stories to tell, both happened to us, learn from our experiences. Firstly my husband, an only child was left everything in his father’s home made will. Unfortunately for us, he remarried five days before he died and therefore the Will was nul and void and my husband received nothing at all from his father’s estate, not even a shirt button.
Second story was concerning my Mum. One of her sons persuaded the other siblings to let him have his ‘quarter’ of our mother’s estate to enlarge his house and then have mum live with him until her death. I doubted the wisdom of this idea but was overruled. House extension later, Mum went into residential care and the remaining three quarters of her wealth was spent on her care. Not quite to do with inheritance and it was my mum’s money, not ours, but I am positive she would not have appreciated one of her children benefitting and the rest of us not getting anything at all.

I was supposed to inherit from paternal grandmother but my father refused to toe the line as to what occupation he should follow so, although many years later, she wrote us all out of inheriting any of her vast wealth.
As a widow with one daughter I will not be leaving anything to her as her husband, who neither my late husband nor I like, will spend it on alcohol! We have worked hard for what I now enjoy so there is no way I would want my money wasted in that way. My daughter has benefitted over the years with paid for holidays, cars, etc so, in a way, has already had her inheritance. Charities such as the RNLI will be my beneficiaries.

I have a will and POA, updated about 2 years ago. My son, daughter in law and my partner all have copies of these. We have discussed what’s in them and what it means for me and for them.

When my late father died, everything was sorted within 6 months as he had left a Will .....BUT when my brother died a couple of years ago, the Probate is STILL not finalised ...I had to pay a very high Inheritance Tax amount, which my Solicitor said in Autumn last year, was due a partial refund....I still have not received it. Sadly he made no Will so Probate has taken a very long time ....having to prove he had no children or a civil partner, selling stocks and shares, selling the house and its contents ......I have made a Will, have a paid up funeral policy, and appointed my Solicitor as PoA for health and financial decisions. I am just waiting for my doctor to let me have a DNAR notice on my medical records, which he seems reluctant to do. My Solicitor knows this also.

My grandparents told me what to expect when they died. I know what my fathers Will contains as we have discussed it and even have a copy of it but not my mothers. I and my husband have Wills and have no-one to leave it all to but have made our wishes clear in the Wills. It's not a topic that iis discussed enough.

My husband died 1st Feb. We both had Wills that left our half of the house in trust to the three daughters and six grandchildren. Wish we hadn't, its going to take 6-12 months to sort it. Luckily I have enough joint money to tide me over. We also had a POA going through at the time and they have refunded his part as it hadn't been registered yet. I had no idea all this legal stuff had to be done I thought the Will was enough. Each different financial company requests different documents and different proof of identity and its not always the ones with the highest amount of money that is the worst. Steep learning curve which I handed over to a Solicitor as soon as I knew I needed to contact Land Registry and all that complication too.

Yes I have been lucky enough to inherit from my parents which has helped with finance through life’s difficulties. My children will get anything left when I go but I like to give now too and see them enjoying little extras.

I only inherited a small amount after my DM died. She had no property. DH died in December, but we had did have prepaid funerals and POAs in place. We didn't have mirror wills. DH had health problems which meant that if I predeceased him, he would need to go into a nursing home, and if he had inherited my half of our assets, this would also have gone towards his care. We had a trust set up so that on first death, the deceased's half of the house went to our adult children. I felt that it was acceptable for his care to be paid for with his assets, but not mine as well. Now, my daughters own half of my house, which means that if I need care, only my half can be used.

I was an only child and when the last parent passed I was the sole benefactor of the will. It was enough to buy a house outright but 8 years later it is still unspent because somehow it does not feel like it is mine.
I have made a will which will benefit my children.

DH and I have had several very bad experiences of inheritance.
His dad left everything to his mum. She died 20 years later without doing any of the things you can do to mitigate inheritance tax so we were left with a big bill. What was unfortunate about that is that if his father had not died suddenly when only in his sixties he would have sorted everything out much better for us all.

My DF also died suddenly leaving a will that hadn't been changed for 20 years. Consequently it didn't take account of all relevant circumstances at the time of his death. It took years to sort out and then my DM died and we had to go through the whole rigmarole again. My sisters and I very nearly fell out over the whole affair.

We still haven't decided exactly how to divide our estate between our three children. Partly because their circumstances are so different from each other and partly because what we own is still in such a mess from when it was owned by previous generations.

But the very worst example of a bad will we have experience of was made by one of DH antecedents who left the bulk of his money in trust for his son's children. Said son was only allowed the interest. He died childless after living into his eighties. His family is still feeing the aftereffects of that one.

Hellsbelles

I was an only child and when the last parent passed I was the sole benefactor of the will. It was enough to buy a house outright but 8 years later it is still unspent because somehow it does not feel like it is mine.
I have made a will which will benefit my children.

It is your money and you have a right to spend it. Of course we all want to leave our children something but not at the expense of denying ourselves a comfortable life.

Go on! once lock down is over choose yourself a nice little place where you will really enjoy living. The children will still get the money once you are gone, secure in the knowledge that it made you happy first.

There are four of us and one brother was my mother’s executor as he was trained in the legal and financial tasks involved. It was quite straightforward for the rest of us though we wished we could have each chosen a keepsake from our old home. My brother instead called in a valuer and it was up to who could afford to, to buy what they wanted from Mother’s estate.
Her small bungalow sold quickly and the proceeds divided equally between the four of us. I had my quarter diverted to my children in its entirety as they were all struggling to buy their starter homes and that way it didn’t go into the pot when my ex and I separated shortly afterwards. Looking back it seems like a small sum but then it enabled two of them to raise a deposit on flats and the third to move from a tiny flat to a place with a little garden for the children. I have never regretted it.

The only inheritance was from my mother. We all knew the contents of her will and I handled all the probate and finance - there wasn't enough to warrant any inheritance tax.

Never received any inheritance due to father remarrying and his wife getting everything after 6 years, never seen her since. As primary carers for husbands parents, when they died the sister whom they never saw got the house and everything, she was already wealthy, it was an old will but it would have cost too much to fight it. Luckily I never let it get me down, we were lucky in other ways.

my parents were divorced and my father remarried and had moved 200 miles away. We exchanged Christmas cards and small gifts, but otherwise little contact. I phoned him on his 90th birthday and his first response was 'Amber who?'. Meanwhile my sister had cut off all contact with both parents many years ago. So I was very surprised when he left us most of his capital, half to me and half to my sister.
I did persuade my mother to get a Power of Attorney, but in the end it wasn't used. She chose to leave nothing to my sister, and made this clear in her will. Unfortunately she later needed residential care due to dementia, this absorbed most of her capital and because she'd neglected vital roof repairs the house sold for half that achieved by similar local properties. If I'd known how bad the damp patch she'd mentioned was, I might have tried to insist she got it fixed.
It can be very difficult to persuade elderly people to do things they can't be bothered with.