A Will

[justcarrots29]

Hiya - just wondered if anyone had any info on how much it would cost roughly for me and my husband to draw up a will?

Is it something any solicitors can do? I take it the 'Do your own Will' kits are not worth the paper they are written on?

Thanks in advance.

You need to ring around solicitors near you, or look on www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/findasolicitor.law

You need to insert your postcode, and then choose wills and probate under the area of law.

If you have relatively simple requirements e.g. All to your partner and all to your children should both of you die held in trust until they are 18/21/25/whatever then the DiY wills are actually fine (and certainly better than nothing)

The more complicated your circumstances the more advice you will need = the more expensive.

My and DH's wills are not absolutely straight forward due to some family property stuff and the cost was £500 + vat for both.

Thank you - I think a DIY one should be fine then. Very straight forward!

If anyone does want to have a will drawn up by a lawyer, there's a mumsnetter (Mumblechum/Marlow Wills) who did our wills and she was really good and not expensive. www.marlowwills.co.uk

thank you elena

I wanted to ask this question too.

£500+ is not remotely affordable is that amount to anyone?

I have complex circs (DCs with 2 dads, I'm sole homeowner, rest of family are useless with money so dont have anyone to trust to sort things) which means that it is probably even more important that I have a will, but what happens when it just isn't affordable???

It might be worth checking if you have any discount or scheme thorugh work/dh work? For some reason, we got both ours free through dh's employers (who are nothing in the field btw). I think diy ones are fine as long as they are witnessed; can you still pay your gp to witness signatures i wonder? Like for passports?

The £500 quoted was for wills for a couple that were not straightforward. A simple will for an individual could be less than £100 - MarlowWills, for example, charges £85.

If you decide that you can't afford a will and don't make one your estate would be split in line with intestacy rules. If you make a do it yourself will it may be fine but it can end up costing your heirs a significant sum of money as they try to sort out the problems in your will.

My trade union (Prospect) offer a free WIll writing service, or at least they used to.

Also had a Flyer from Amnesty International about Make a WIll week coming up in the next couple of weeks

Amnesty

A will can sometimes contain a complicated trust. The cost depends what you want to acheive by it.

darlene I have no direct experince of this but "will aid" are a charity to which, once a year, solicitors donate their time. You can then use the solicitor to draw up your will for a suggested donation £75.

Also remember a will is an expression of your wishes and as such you could simply type up what it is you want to happen after your death, although this may be flawed it is certainly worth considering in the interim and almost certainly a better alternative to simply having nothing in place.

Ill check out those options, thanks.

There are about a million questions id want to ask a solicitor aboit a will.

Ge what happens of we move across uk jurisdictions?

Would it automatically be invalid if we married?

What if a beneficiary dies before/sith me? Id turn in my grave if ds's dad got hold of my assets.

Will my house have to be sold, as im the sole owner?

I also need to know how trusts work.

To answer some of your questions on the assumption you live in England...

Any will you make before you marry is automatically invalidated the moment you marry.

Your will should state what happens to a beneficiary's share if they die before you. If your will does not cover this situation what happens depends on whether it is a specific gift to this individual or a share in a gift to a group of people (e.g. £x to be split equally between my nephews). Without going into all the details it will go to one or more of the other beneficiaries of your will. The heirs of the dead beneficiary will get nothing.

On the other hand if a beneficiary dies at the same time as you the oldest person is assumed to have died first. So if you and your son die together, you are assumed to have died first. His share is then distributed in accordance with his will. If he hasn't made a will the intestacy rules apply. You can stipulate that he only inherits if he survives you by at least, say, 28 days.

Whether your house will have to be sold or not depends on how you distribute your estate.

I would recommend seeing a solicitor who specialises in this area of law and get it done properly. DH doesn't rate DIY wills particulalry and can make far more money from sorting out badly drafted diy (and many will writer wills as no all ae qualified; do your research well) wills when the time comes to implement them than he ever does from writing a proper decent will in the first place.

Just writing out your wishes is not effective as a will. A mere letter is unlikely to satisfy the technical specifications that make a document a will.

A will can be made expressly in contemplation of a marriage, and so can survive the marriage.

Please don't DIY. I'm in the process of sorting out my aunt's DIY will and it's a headache. The clause where the witnesses sign was flawed and they needed to sign an affidavit. The problem is one witness is incapable of sorting out her affairs and has an attorney and the other witness is quite elderly and could have passed away herself anytime. It was all very frustrating because property down there is typically taking up to two years to sell and we had a buyer for my aunt's house as long as we could complete by the end of March.

If I were to put my greedy hat on, I'd implore everyone to either make no will, or do it themselves. Solicitors charge so little to do a will that as a profession we'd make much more money acting for people in Inheritance Act claims or as in STIDW's case sorting out a mess.

Of course with my professional hat on, everyone must have one!

bumpy!

PRH marriage doesn't invalide a Will if it's written into it though does it? We did that, and the start of it states that it's written...erm...something like "in contemplation of my forthcoming marriage to "

Please tell me we don't have to redo them

No you don't have to redo it if that clause is specifically in it.

Just like to confirm that marriage doesn't invalidate a will if it's made in contemplation of the marriage.

So when I'm writing wills for people who think they'll get married, even if it's just "one of these days", I state that the will won't be invalidated by the marriage, but equally if they don't end up getting married, it remains valid. So cover all bases.

Urm, a will doesn't have to be witnessed unless you are dividing property or setting up a trust fund. You can write one yourself if there's no property involved.

All wills have to be signed in the presence of 2 independent witnesses otherwise they're ineffective for all purposes.

Of course all wills have to be witnessed by two independent (ie not beneficiaries) witnesses.

I really would advise against DIY wills as there have been a number of cases where they have not been valid as have not been correctly executed (signed)

In fact, several years ago when my elderly aunt died it turned out that her will was not executed correctly. It has been drafted by a firm of solicitors who sent it to her to get executed and she got her Brother-in-law to be one of the witnesses. His wife was the residuary beneficiary and needless to say that was a very difficult one to sort out.