Tell Co-op Legal Services about your experiences with making a will - £300 voucher to be won! NOW CLOSED

[EmmaMumsnet]

If you and your partner have children together, thinking ahead to a time when the unimaginable has happened and both you and your partner have passed away, leaving your child (or children) in need of a Legal Guardian, is an awful conversation to think about, let alone have. However, Co-op Legal Services know that if you make formal arrangements in relation to a will, you are able to name the Legal Guardians of your children instead of the Court making a decision you might not have wished for. With that in mind, Co-op Legal Services would like to know your experiences with making a will.

James Antoniou, Head of Wills at Co-op Legal Services, says: “As parents, we recognise the need to protect our children throughout our lifetimes. Making a will and providing for guardianship is an extension of that protection, ensuring that our wishes are clear about who will be responsible for their upbringing.

If you are interested in starting your wills journey with the Co-op, start your will online now"

Do you currently have a will? Or is it still an ongoing process? How did you go about making some of the important decisions that a will requires? Do you have the conversations surrounding a will with your family?

So whether you’ve set up one already or looking to begin making one, share your experiences below and you will be entered into a prize draw to win a £300 voucher of your choice (from a list).

Thanks, and good luck

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

We made our mirror wills when we had our daughter as we wanted to ensure her guardian would be of our choosing, & not cause friction in the family if several relations wanted to look after her. It was an easy process done by our solicitor, but very thought provoking. We even had to state our funeral wishes, executors, & on important issues if someone died who we had specified, who would benefit instead. To die intestate is a terrible thing for a family to have to deal with & we feel everyone should make a will to ensure their wishes are followed.

We haven't done ours yet, it is always on my to do list but I can never quite figure out who and how to to about guardians for the children , I must stop putting it off though.

We have mirror wills which are very simple, with the aim of providing for poor children financially and in terms of singing guardians etc in the event of our deaths. Out was easy to do.

We did our wills a few years ago and recently updated them. Although we had a home visit from a will writing service on a good offer, and the service was very efficient the man told me things I knew weren't right (I'm a solicitor in another area of practice). He also tried to sell us hugely costly trusts unnecessarily but we declined that. Happy to have wills in place and have appointed by cousin as guardian for the children.

We drew up wills when I was pregnant with our DS. My partner already had a will so we used the same local solicitors firm that he used originally to re-write his and do mine from scratch. It was definitely worth getting it done professionally though as they make you think of so many different aspects that you may not consider if trying to draw one up yourself.

I used a standard form will from WH Smith's. Worked for me because a) our affairs are completely 100% straightforward, b) I have legal training and know the jargon and what I wanted. It's filed along the other family wills with our solicitor and although she was a bit sniffy she had to admit that there was nothing actually wrong with it.

To the people in couples who are procrastinating about this simply because they're not sure about guardians for children....PLEASE DON'T. It is desperately rare for both parents to die in the same accident. If you're a couple then unless your hobby is tandem skydiving it is a hundred times, probably a thousand times more likely that one of you would die leaving the other alive but up shit creek financially/administratively. Far better to get a basic will in place immediately that will deal with that much more likely situation and deal with the guardianship when you've come to a decision.
(Ignore the above advice if you're widowed or biological father is completely incapable of custody).

The people who really need to make a will asap are:
Unmarried cohabitees
Separated but not yet divorced couples
Single people with no children who are N/C with one or both parents
People involved in step-families

Neither me nor DH have one yet but it is on our list of things to do - just not near the top of it if I'm honest!
We did start thinking about it when a relative nearly died in a car accident.
My parents have mentioned it to us too - they have them and said it is something we should do.
Now we have a family it is more of a priority and know we will do it at some point.

We are in mid forties and have no will. I lost my mother 2 years ago and completely appreciate how important having a will is, however its just something that we have overlooked. We are planning to adopt another child and i would certainly like to ensure that if anything should happen to us, that our children have financial security.

Awesome this have just given me the kick up the bum I have desperately needed for years!
Just filled in the online form with Co-op and will finally be having something after putting it off for years!
I wish I had know you could do it this easily before! Thanks mums net!

Losing someone close to be who didn't have a will has made me realize how important it is and necessarily to tell family and close friends your wishes.

I am still trying to make decisions and want to make one when they have the week in the year where the cost of the will goes to charity.

I'm embarrassed to admit that we havent got wills. We went as far as talking to a solicitor, but then decided to get married so figured we'd changed the goalposts so needed to start again.

We haven't done wills, but it it something I have thought about. I just don't really know where to start and how much it will cost to do through a solicitor. Do you pay per will, or are mirror wills done as a 'package'?
If there was a low cost, straightforward way to do it 'properly' as opposed to a simple template, we would do it now.

We are in the process of making a new will to replace an existing one as we've moved from England to Scotland. We also want to update the existing provisions for guardianship of our children if we both were to die as there have been some changes in our extended family. Very few of my friends have made provisions for custody in their wills though which I find surprising. We have discussed guardianship arrangements etc with the relevant family members. We've just bought a house so we're using the same solicitor who did the conveyancing for our house.

A charity I support was having a will writing month when the will would be done in return for a donation to the charity, this spurred me on to do it and I doubt I would have had one yet otherwise but I'm glad I have done it

The thing that really stood out for me was that you will realise how many people you love/hate when you start thinking of who you want to leave things to

Give yourself plenty of time beforehand to think about who you want included, what you have and then how to distribute it. I did mine a week or so before and it gave me time to remember someone who had slipped my mind etc. I get a reminder in the post once a year to check it, I've updated it once but I check every time and find that reminder useful

I am in exactly the same situation as InvisibleKittenAttack

" DH and I can't agree on who gets the dcs, so we keep shelving the discussion for "later", but never quite get round to sorting a time to have the argument. "

As soon as our first child was born, we chose a guardian and completed and signed our own forms from templates online. We did keep putting off getting around to doing a Will. I finally had a proper Will drawn up after I separated from STBXH as I was seeing a solicitor anyway. It was very easy and the solicitor was great and I feel much better knowing that it is all sorted.

My will is an ongoing process. I dont have a large reliable family and it was quite tricky to find people to agree to be guardians/executors for my will.

I am a single parent so have had to make my own decisions. I have deliberately decided not to leave anything to my parents even in the event I predecease them but instead to leave my brother quite a chunk and the rest to my DC. My difficulty was structuring the will so that if I die and then my DC die (forget which order) that absolutely nothing could go to my ex or his partner. I havent yet sorted out a statement of wishes for personal items.

I have a will. My exh doesn't. What I found very disconcerting whilst making my will was that my exh could challenge my will & my named guardian's & even move into my house!! wtf?! I now have a very carefully worded will, but you all need to be very careful, especially split families.

I did mine for free through a charity I support - I included a legacy donation in my will for them although this was not a requirement of the free service.

It needs to be updated though as my circumstances have changed since I made it two years ago.

The most important thing is for parents to make it clear exactly who is to take care of their children if the worst happens and if any of the money left to the children can be used by those looking after them for everyday expenses as they grow up.

It's a horrible thing to think about but it has to be done.

Having a will is soooo important. Heard of so many stories where argument irrupt and families broken apart - making a will is not as hard as it first seems.

No we don't, not good enough really! Not for any other reason than just not got round to it. This is a good reminder it needs to be done!

We haven't made ours yet which is really lax of us as we have very young children. I know we must get it done as a priority.

I have to be honest that I haven't yet made a will and I haven't really discussed it with any family members. It is on my list of things to do but whenever it comes near the top, I shift it to the bottom again - I need guidance and someone to help me to do it.

I need to really start thinking about one as I have a teenager now. My dad is really good with these types of things so that will help me out a lot