What our Wills cover

Revocation of previous Wills

Your last Will and testament by definition is the most recent. However, the first lines of any Will usually revoke (cancel) any previous Wills you might have made.

Appointment of executors

An executor is a personal representative who carries out your wishes in your Will.

In your Will, you can nominate up to four people to work together as your executors. They are appointed through the process of obtaining a grant of probate when you die.

We also allow you to nominate alternatives if your first choices are unable or unwilling to take up the position.

Appointment of Guardians for your children under 18 years

For detailed information about choosing guardians with parental responsibility for your children, we recommend that you read our article on providing for later generations.

Gifts of money and possessions (legacies and bequests) to individuals

You can make as many gifts to individuals as you like. These may include real and personal property, money in bank accounts, or other assets including digital assets.

When you give specific gifts, they are deemed to be free of tax. That means if tax is due on your estate, it is paid using the money and assets that you have not already given away (your ‘residual estate’). So you need to make sure that you do not accidentally deprive those closest to you by making too large gifts to less important people.

If you make a gift of real property, such as your house or a piece of land, you should make sure that you own it outright. If you own the real property with co-owners, then it will automatically pass to them.

Gifts to charities

In law, a charity is simply another person. So just as you can leave a gift of money to a family relative, you can leave a gift to any charity.

Options for giving gifts to minors

If a beneficiary is under 18 when you die, then the law automatically places his or her gift in trust until he or she reaches 18. For small gifts, especially to minors who are not your own, you may want to avoid the administrative burden that managing a trust would place on your executors, and give the gift to the parents instead, either to keep on behalf of the child or to use as they choose (for the child).

Options for leaving the residual estate

In most templates, you can choose to leave:

• everything to one person
• everything in equal shares between a group of people
• specific shares to specific individuals

We also include a gift-over provision allowing you to nominate alternative beneficiaries for the gift of the residual estate.

Payment to executors

The law says that an executor may not accept payment for his work unless the Will expressly authorises it. But if you want a professional executor, they will usually act only if they are paid for his time. So we always provide a simple sentence authorising professional executors to be remunerated.

It would be most unusual for a family member acting as an executor to demand to be paid for their time, but they could reasonably ask for repayment of expenses.

Directions for valuation of your estate

After your death, it is unlikely that those closest to you will be thinking hard about the cost of winding up your estate. However, they may require professional valuations of certain assets to satisfy BRA. The professionals who provide these valuations generally charge far more than they would dare to charge you if you were alive. In all but the simplest Wills we provide an instruction by you to stop this happening.

Funeral wishes

Strictly, you do not legally own your own dead body and, therefore, cannot specify what should happen to it. However, if you make your funeral wishes clear in your Will, it is most likely that your executors and relatives will carry them out.

Repayment of funeral expenses take precedence over the payment of gifts.

An example letter of intent

A letter of intent is a side letter that is not part of your Will and not binding. However, executors tend to follow the instructions you give in it. A letter of intent gives you an opportunity to cover business arrangements and personal matters in depth. It is not registered, unlike your Will is, so no-one except your personal representatives needs ever know its contents.

Life interests and property protection

Trusts that create life interests are used to control ownership of the assets you place into the trusts. The beneficiaries may use the assets during their lifetimes (or subject to other conditions) after which the trusts are dissolved and ownership of the assets passes to other people you choose.

The most common use is to provide security for a partner or second wife or husband during her or his lifetime, but for the assets eventually to pass to children, some of whom might be from earlier marriages and who otherwise might be accidentally disinherited if the entire estate passed to your second wife.