Help writing will please

[Ouch44]

Not needed hopefully but could someone please give advice on how to write a will.

DH is an A&E Dr so working with COVID patients daily. Been something that we've been meaning to do for ages and really should do it now.

Have looked on moneysavingexpert and it's a bit overwhelming. Just need a simple mirror will as far as I can work out. Would like to be able to do it quickly, ideally today as he's got the day off and at home and cause us as little stress as possible.

Thanks for any advice

Telephone a will-writing company. They often come to your house but could maybe explain it all by phone and get it written up and sent to you to sign and get witnessed.

Message @Mumblechum1 - she has her own will writing company an d is super helpful

@mumblechum0 is used a lot on here .She's lovely and v v helpful....aah but I see v busy at the moment

have a look here

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/legal_matters/3853508-Wills

it must be so stressful for you at the moment ,please give huge thanks to your husband for all he's doing .And have some yourself

Thank you. The kids are around so was hoping not to have to do it on the phone.

Yes it's very stressful. Thanks for the flowers. Been a lot of colds and sore throats in our house recently and every little symptom makes you paranoid. Not so much about us but the potential for him to pass anything on to patients. Also one of the people that died yesterday with no symptoms was the same age as DS.

You can get a free template here - www.compactlaw.co.uk/free-legal-documents.html

If you just want a very simple will where everything is left to your husband, you should be fine to do it yourself without a solicitor.

Wills have to be witnessed and can’t be witnessed by a beneficiary (from memory) as that invalidates the bequest to that beneficiary.

A will is something that is easy to get wrong.

Please speak to someone who is an expert.

Just use an internet will writing company, very straightforward and the one we used had a legal person check it over (sorry cannot recall which one it was). Then you just print them both out and get two witnesses to sign.

Firstly always good to consider doing the will with a person with legal training!

Secondly my Dad's cousin lost his wife when his kids were young. He remarried then died after two years of remarriage when the two kids were 18 and early twenties. He was 50.

Lots of people of 50 do not have a will but had he not had one his new wife would have got the lot. His new wife had a house ( I think it might have been mortgage free) that she acquired from her first marriage.

Dad's cousin wrote a will saying that if she died everything should go to his kids and she should leave and live in her own property. As soon as the woman found this out she put her house in her sister's name. When this guy died she went to court claiming that she was being made homeless and that she should get the home. She got half in the end. It became clear that she believed that spouses should to inherit everything when their other half dies, many people think this.

If the first wife had written a will saying that if she died the husband could live in her half of the house but that if he died it would go straight to her kids. A life tenancy. Then, when the judge awarded the second wife half her husbands estate the second wife would have got a quarter.

My boyfriend's aunt also married a man 25 years older incredibly wealthy. He's dead now and she still lives in the huge valuable house she inherited. We are not in contact with her so not sure what she will leave his kids but they are not that much younger than her. Her mum lived to 97 so she may outlive his kids, and then all the hard work of her husband's first wife will not benefit their children whatsoever. She's not in contact with her own family so if she is not super close with her late husbands family it may all go to the charity she volunteers for.

Basically the reason why I'm telling these stories are because most people leave everything to their spouse. It is so so common to write a will with 'everything to my husband/ wife'. You may be planning to! I thought you could talk to your solicitor about these examples where leaving everything to the spouse went a bit wrong!

Thanks found Lawpack online will writing service which is Irwin Mitchell which we have locally.

When we updated our wills, the solicitor said that one thing to consider is the situation where a couple both get ill at the same time (such as in a car crash for example) and one dies not long after the other.

So although you might plan to leave everything to your husband and him to leave everything to you, it may be worth having a clause that says you would leave everything to each other unless you both die in a specified period after each other, in which case you might prefer for it to go to someone in your family, who would look after your children.

Hope that makes sense! Fortunately it's a very unlikely scenario but one I wouldn't have thought of until my solicitor kindly mentioned it.

Please get some legal advice. It’s not so simple if you have children, you need to think of them, ideally appoint guardians, sort out your pension, decide what happens if you die in a common calamity .

Sorry to hear how stressed you are.

Thankfully as we've been meaning to do it so long we have thought through who we'd like as guardians etc.

Just want something simple for now and we can update it after this is over

Please contact a solicitor.You wouldn't do your conveyancing on the basis of an online template or MN advice.
Get decent advice from someone qualified to give it who can look at your individual situation.