Anyone know about making a will?

[woodyandbuzz]

I'm asking for help for my brother. He is single and has no children, but as he is buying a flat at the moment, he wants to make a will.

He wants to do this:

1. Leave everything (flat and bank account) to my mum

or, if he outlives my mum, he wants to:

2. Leave everything split equally 3 ways between his 3 siblings. If any sibling was no longer living, their share would go to their children if any. If the sibling was deceased with no kids, then he'd like their share to just go back to the living sibilings.

He would obv need to change it if he got a wife and kids.

Is there a problem just writing this into a will that you can pick up from WHSmith/post office or is there a reason that a solicitor should do it?

Thanks for any help!

We used the Will Pack that you can get from WHSmith. Since we were not adding anything really complex into the will we never felt the need to use a solicitor.

This was especially the case as we had a "free will" offer from the solicitors that were dealing with our house purchase and pretty much all he did was fill in a template in any case - 5 minutes max.

Does his estate exceed £325k?

I would say go to a solicitor,..for the £80 odd quid it would cost him, he may get invaluable adice about all sorts of things which he may not have considered and he can have greater flexibility within his will about bequests and how the executors can manage them if beneficiaries are minors.

Every will should be tailored to individual wishes and circumstances IMO...

Thanks for replies, no, estate won't exceed £325k - replies divided

Is he in a trade union? Many of them have arrangements with solicitors and offer free will writing services, mine did.

he is a teacher, must be in a union, will get him to find out

Plenty of charities offer 'Free Will' services. They pay for a solicitor to make your Will (A single WIll shouldn't cost more than £150 anyway) and you're under no obligation to leave anything to them (although it would be nice).

In any case, I think it's worth having a proper Will made - homemade Wills generally make more money for solicitors in the end, as they are inflexible and it's easy to create problems later down the line just through a lack of understanding. Best to get proper advice.

Is he planning on getting a wife and kids imminently? Marriage automatically invalidates any Will he may have made already unless it's worded in a particular way.

AFAIK solicitors charge about £100 for a will but they do it properly. Mine were really helpful when I did mine, bit of a 'dummies guide to wills'.