WILLS – Top Ten Tips

1. Choose who draws up your Will wisely: Some lawyers make more money sorting out badly drafted Wills and dealing with claims against those Wills than they make from drawing up Wills. Your Will is a key component in your financial planning and an essential record of your wishes.

DIY is OK for home improvements but not for Wills. Use a specialist company. We provide solicitors services in the comfort of your home at a time to suit you, which is ideal, locally at a

Time to suit you.

2. Choose your executors well: Executors are responsible for exercising your estate in accordance with your Will. Being an Executor is a responsible and demanding role, and can involve large sums of money. Also make sure the people you choose are happy with the role.

3. Appoint a substitute executor: If you are a couple you will probably want your partner to be your executor, but do not appoint them as sole executor. If you both died together in an accident neither of you would have an executor living, so always appoint a substitute executor (s).

4. Appoint guardians: If you are the last living parent and you die leaving a child under 18 a guardian will be appointed by the Court of Protection if you have not specified who this should be in your Will. If you are unmarried parents and the man dies, the female partner automatically gets guardianship of any child, but the reverse will not necessarily apply.

5. Appoint trustworthy trustees: This might seem obvious, but if you are setting up a trust in your Will or if your beneficiaries could be under age 18 when you die, you will need to appoint trustees. Trustees will be responsible for managing and investing money, or looking after property until it passes to the beneficiaries, so make sure they are people with a good grasp of financial matters.

6. Make specific legacies: If you want to preserve family heirlooms or items of special sentimental value you should leave these items as a specific legacy to a named beneficiary and record your relationship to them. When leaving a legacy to a charity record the Registered Charity Number.

7. Leave a residual legacy: The ´residue´ is what is left over in your estate after you have made any specific legacies. You must specify who this goes to as if you fail to do so you will create a partial testacy in your Will. In other words, the specific legacies would pass according to the Will, but the residue would be subject to the intestacy laws.

8. Beat the Tax Man: A 40% inheritance tax rate applies to individual estates valued above £325,000. The surviving partner of a married couple or civil partnership has the potential of £650,000 free of any tax liability. However, trusts can be used in Wills to potentially avoid all inheritance tax no matter how large an estate is. Trusts can also ensure the best provision is made for a couple´s children and that their home will not be exposed to an enforced sale to meet long term care costs at a future date.

9. Sign your Will: If you do not sign your Will in front of two independent witnesses it can not be valid. A witness must not be anyone, or the spouse of anyone, mentioned in the Will.

10. Have your Will stored securely: Once your Will is signed and witnessed have it stored in a secure storage facility. This will protect it from damage, loss or malicious destruction, which can occur. Your executors receive a certificate detailing where your Will is stored and how to get hold of it when you die. The Probate Registry require sight of the original Will, not a copy.

Whatever you do – don´t hide your Will. Your Will is of no use if it cannot be found.

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