Confused by advice from will writer adviser

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Advised to write our wills, couple in early 30's shortly to be first time property owners
We have joint account for all joint expenses, separate savings accounts. We wish to leave the money in our singly named savings accounts to our respective siblings, we have no children. We've been tpld this needs to be written as a percentage of the estate, or account numbers supplied.

What happens if we change accounts over the years, or acquire new ones? Additionally, we don't understand the percentage thing at all as this will change frequently.

Can anyone clarify? It seems simpler to state money in this account with this account holder's name, 🤷‍♀️

That does seem a tad over the top. When my father died last year, he had both a joint account with another person and also a single account in just his own name.

There were no problems at all with the will stating that his estate was left to his beneficiaries without giving any details of that sort.

The money in his joint account automatically passed to the surviving person and the money in his single account was distributed according to his will.

The inclusion of account numbers may perhaps be an attempt to make things easier after death so that the executors don't have to search through all your paperwork to discover any of your assets? That's just a guess though.

The percentage of the estate thing also sounds a bit odd as well. I could understand if this was perhaps in relation to the value of the property you are about to buy. I assume you're buying it as tenants in common?

The normal assumption would be that you will own the property 50/50 but that's not always the case. It may be that you split ownership of the property 60/40, 70/30 or anything else that you decide on together.

If you are not splitting it 50/50 then that perhaps might be an added reason to mention the percentage split in the will but I can't think of any reason why you might have to.

Sorry, just to add to the above. If you were to say something like "I leave my savings account to my sibling X"

There may be confusion if you have more than one bank account and maybe if you have an ISA as well. Which of these bank accounts do you mean by your "savings" account?

In that situation, I could understand that it would be necessary to properly identify which of your bank accounts you are leaving to your sibling.

Thanks for this very helpful response.
Yes, tenants-in-common. 50/50 split.

Re naming the account numbers, these could change, for example if one of us receives an inhertance from grandparents or parents, or just moving a bank account to a different bank... it seems a bit OTT to change wills to reflect that.

Yes, ISA currently but again tbat could change depending on changes to savings interest rates, I suppose.

Seems like overkill - I regularly shuffle my savings around and it just seems unnecessary to stipulate individual account numbers.

Ask why you can't just put something like 'all individually held cash funds shared equally to siblings A,B and C?

Thanks. Yes, we've tried askibg that simple question, she cannot seem to explain to us why this wouldn't work. Therefore we've decided to take advice from a solicitor re this even if it means paying more

I have had several wills drawn up over the years and have never put account numbers on. I think it's important to be clear so "savings" is not necessarily clear. You may say any cash or monies held on account or something. Just to distinguish it from other things such as shareholdings etc which you may have

Yes, thanks, sounds sensible to make that distinction 😊

It doesn't sound very specific. What is meant by "savings" for instance?

Have never heard of the account numbers thing, but maybe it's an attempt to help future executors track the savings down? Seems a bit crazy though as people do close accounts and open new ones.

The percentage thing is quite common and is an attempt to retain the relative amounts to be handed over should the will not get updated for years eg if you leave £100 to charity out of £1000 savings (ie 10%) but when you die 30 years later the charity still only gets £100 but the savings have increased to £30,000!