How much to get a Will made?

[Erebus]

How much would you expect to pay to get a Will written? Can you do it on line? It'd be straight forward up to a point, that being a way of avoiding the pain and heartache I have recently witnessed where the DC of the first deceased parent lost out entirely to the DC of their step parent's DC! i.e a couple, both with previous DC, marry, the husband bringing all the money into the marriage. He died intestate, so his entire estate went to his wife. She then died leaving everything to her DC.

I would want a Will (which would be mirrored by DH's) where my half of the Estate, or maybe the capital, if I died first would be ring fenced for my (our) DCs alone when DH died, to avoid a situation where he remarries a woman who spots opportunity. It's fine if he then wants her DC to inherit over ours (unlikely but possible if he revokes his Will or whatever!) but at least my DC would inherit half of their parents estate, via me.

I mean to point out that I would expect DH to be able to go on living in the house and so forth but that, upon his death, that our DCs inherit my half of the estate!

Of course, vice versa is also the case!

TIA

Lots of charities arrange solicitors to write your will for free on the basis that you leave them some money too. Sightsavers do it, but so do most others. I'd speak to your fav charity first and you might get it done for nothing.

You could wait until November and find a solicitor who is participating in Will Aid. According to the website you'd need to start looking early though.

There are two ways of paying for a Will to be done.

A solictor will charge a fee per hour. Probably £250 + VAT for a relatively simple Will.

Banks also do Will writing and tend to charge a low initial fee but they also tend to charge a percentage of the estate once the Will is administered.

I know someone who didit via their bank Noooooooooooooooooooooooooo it was awful. I'm looking at doingmine in Will week

I don't know if mumblechum1 is still on here but she used to do wills. She did mine (very well and very quickly) and didn't charge anything like the amount MoreBeta mentioned.

I just came on here to ask the very same question! My DH and I would like to make a will and have just had a quote for £250 plus VAT for mirror wills from our local solicitor. I wasn't sure whether that was reasonable or not.

Also, any tips on content of the will? DH and I own our house and have two DCs. We'd like everything to go to them I think. Do we have to specify family members to take care of them in the (hopefully unlikely!) event of our early deaths? Is there just a standard form of will or does it go into detail? Should the solicitor advise on all that? Sorry, I'm totally clueless but want to get it sorted soon as have heard some sad stories about people who have died without having made a will.

Thanks.

Another vote for doing it through Will Aid. We did ours that way, and it was great. - felt good to have the money going to a deserving cause.

What counts as a 'basic' Will, anyone know? As in does the circumstances s/he outlines in the OP regarding stopping step children inheriting (full) childrens shares count as 'basic'?

Wondering! As I want to do the same.

A simple Will would be like where a husband and wife with two of their own children make Wills to share their property on death and that property is just a house, some money, proceeds of a life insurane policy and a few personal possessons.

Once you start adding complex codicils, trusts and complex property then the cost of doing a Will goes up - a lot!

We did wills recently and they were about £500 but we did trusts, etc. as you want. So if one of us (god forbid) were to die the other persons share of our house goes into trust, so although I could sell our house half of whatever i buy would always belong to DS in trust for him. We also covered guardians and who would have him, if they'd get 'expenses' to help raise him to a Good standard financially, all that stuff so it was very detailed. Also included changing our deeds with Land Registry so we both owned 50% separately instead of 100% jointly so that the other persons share was separate and available to be put into trust. Took a few hours to do.

I would also recommend Mumblechum1, see her advert in small businesses (classified) She is a qualified lawyer and will writer and charges significantly less than a High Street firm would charge. She is quick and professional. I would advise against using a bank, heard too many horror stories.

I can strongly recommend that you contact Mumblechum. She has done wills for lots of Mumsnetters and her costs are very reasonable.

Mumblechum has done ours recently. We were very happy with her advice and she was very inexpensive (much less than the quotes people mention for high street siolicitors) and quick. She was helpful with advice on the issue you mention re stepchildren as there was an issue like that in our family.

If you are a member of a union (eg Unison) they offer a will service for free.

Wow, thank you so much for all the kind plugs!

OP, my paid for advert is just about to expire over on Small Business Classifieds (am re-writing it today). It's called "Marlow Wills 5* Will Writing Business Recommended by Mumsnetters"

Current charge is £150 for a pair of standard mirror wills, £100 for a single.

The circumstances set out in the OP and echoed by Litten Tree would probably be best dealt with by making a Life Interest Trust in the house. In order for that to take effect you'd have to ensure that the house is held as tenants in common rather than joint tenants.

Putting in a life interest trusts adds about £60 to the bill, and severing the joint tenancy (if necessary) about £40 on top

I guess the 'danger' of going 'tenants in common' instead of 'joint' would be what might happen if we split up- the woman/wife/mother might normally get a larger %age of the house than half, might she not, but could only get half if they were 50/50 TiC. Is that right?

No, Litten Tree. If you sever a joint tenancy and then divorce, it doesn't matter. The court always has jurisdiction to decide what the equity split will be irrespective of the tenure.

Ah, OK!