Your Will is an important legal document. If you do not have a valid legal Will then chances are your estate will cost more to administer and your loved ones will likely be exposed to a lot of unnecessary angst at a time when they already trying to cope with the grief caused by loss of one close to them.
Many people put off making a Will for some strange reason. Perhaps it is the thought of facing and acknowledging your mortality? Perhaps it is the thought of the visit to a stuffy lawyers office and perhaps it is the cost factor. The days of lawyers doing Wills or any other legal work for nothing are almost certainly a thing of the past, and so they should be frankly.
Some Wills are complicated but in truth, most are quite straightforward where a couple simply wish to leave everything to each other and then the children when they are both gone. Complicated Wills are rightly, and should remain the absolute domain of lawyers but if all you want is to learn how to do a Will which is quite straightforward then you may find that there are some really professional online options available to you at very reasonable cost.
Your Will must be in writing and must be signed at the foot of each page and at the end of the document in your usual signature. Your Will should be witnessed by two witnesses who also sign the foot of each page and witness your signature on the last page too. Your witnesses should not be the trustees of your Will and nor should they be beneficiaries.
If a beneficiary does witness your Will, it does not render it invalid but it will mean any gift to that beneficiary in your Will is going to fail. Best therefore to ensure that your witnesses are entirely unrelated and removed from the family.
In thinking about how to do a will, particularly if you choose to try to do it yourself, you should give special thought to who the trustees will be. You will need people with some business acumen and who will represent the interests of your beneficiaries with good judgement.
If you have minor children, you can and should appoint a testamentary guardian for them in your Will.
Wills can be challenged for a number of reasons and having a valid last Will can minimise the chances of a challenge. One possible of area of challenge is that of testamentary promise. If you have promised something to a particular person in consideration of services to you during your life then this could be enforced.
Wills can also be challenged by close relatives to whom you owe a duty at law if they do not feel that you have provided for them adequately and also, buy a spouse or life partner under the equal sharing provisions of The Property (Relationships) Act 1976.
The message is simple, if you are making a Will and want to minimise the possibility of unnecessary stress for your loved ones, make sure that you learn how to do a will which avoids the known pitfalls. Most importantly of all, make sure that you have a valid last Will at all costs.
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