Five things to think about when writing a Will

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Writing a Will can be an emotional and daunting task, but it is essential to have one in place to ensure your property and possessions are divided how you wish when you die.

Your Will can also include non-financial assets, such as what will happen to your pets when you are no longer here, and any funeral plans you may wish to have.

As a Will is a legally binding document this means it needs to be executed correctly for it to be valid. By using a regulated solicitor to write your Will, you will have a guaranteed piece of mind that your family will be protected, and your wishes will be carried out when you pass away.

Writing a Will

We have rounded up five things you need to think about when you’re writing your Will:

1) What to include

Before writing your Will, think about what you need to include. A Will could state the following:

Who should inherit your assets after you die
Name a guardian for your children
Leave instructions for your funeral
Set up trusts to provide for your family financially
Name an executor (or several executors) who will administer the estate and carry out your last wishes
Plans for pets when you die

2) Choose an executor

Executors are appointed to carry out your wishes in accordance with your Will. An executor can be someone you can trust over the age of eighteen, but it’s most common to be a relative, friend or solicitor.

In most cases, it’s best practice to name more than one executor or choose one and a substitute. Meanwhile, if your Will is complex, appointing a solicitor as your executor can be beneficial.

If your executor needs professional help, they can also instruct a solicitor to provide advice and guidance.

Executors can inherit from your estate as beneficiaries, but please ensure that they do not witness your Will.

3) Avoid challenges to validity

A Will is a legally binding document, and any issues involving its validity can cause family distress and financial complications. Your Will should lay out clear instructions and should not contradict itself in any way.

There should be nothing amended or crossed out in the document that you sign.

If you want to change your Will at a later date, you’ll need to make a codicil or a new Will. A codicil is an additional document setting out any changes you’d like to make, signed and witnessed in the same way as your Will (though not necessarily by the same people).

When putting together the document, don’t leave blank spaces to prevent anyone from tampering with your Will.

Undue Influence

Other factors can also invalidate your Will, including if it was written under undue influence.

Undue influence is when another person uses manipulation, coercion, or pressure to influence a person into giving them a benefit in their Will, which they otherwise wouldn’t have done. Undue influence claims are complex and can be difficult to prove.

To succeed with the claim, it is necessary to show there has been coercion rather than simply persuasion.

Duress

A Will must be signed voluntarily to be valid. This means that a Will signed under duress is invalid as you have been forced to do something against your own wishes.

Generally, duress includes physical attacks or threats of physical violence, but it can also include psychological or economic threats.

Capacity

For a Will to be valid, the testator must have sufficient mental capacity. Testamentary capacity is the term used to describe a person’s legal and mental ability to make or alter a valid Will.

If the person making the Will (testator) lacks testamentary capacity at the time that the Will is executed, the Will is invalid. For a Will to be valid, the testator must:

Understand the nature of making a will and its effects.
Understand the extent of the property of which they are disposing.
Have no disorder of the mind that perverts their sense of right or prevents the exercise of their natural faculties in disposing of their property by Will.

Lack of knowledge and approval

The testator must have knowledge of the terms of the Will and approve its content for it to be valid. Knowing and approving a Will essentially means the testator must know the contents of that Will, for example by reading it or having it read to them, and they must approve those contents.

But if it later transpires after the testator has died that the contents were not as they wanted or expected, an interested person may seek to have the Will declared invalid by the Court, by making a claim for ‘want of knowledge and approval’.

This might occur if the interested person claims the testator was too ill to understand the contents of the Will, or if the Will was not read to or by them so they did not know what it contains.

4) Digital Assets

As well as physical and monetary assets, in this day and age you need to think about your digital assets. This could include any digital subscriptions, photographs that you own, and cash deposited in online third-party accounts such as PayPal.

You can also list what you would like to happen to your social media accounts, who should take them over or close them down, as well as instructions on where to find your logins. However, you should not state your logins on your Will, as this will become a public document.

5) Where to store your Will

As well as writing your Will, you need to think about where you’re going to store it. It needs to be located in a safe but accessible place for your executors to find when you pass away. To avoid any complications, you should also inform your executors of where to find your Will when you die.

Where to store your Will to keep it safe:

Leave it with a solicitor

By leaving it with a solicitor, protections are in place to keep it safe as they are a regulated service. It also makes it easily accessible for executors when you die.

Lodge it with the Probate Registry (England and Wales)

The Probate Registry will store your Will for you for a small fee to keep it safe. You can request the release of your Will free of charge during your lifetime or your executors can do so when you die.

However, to release the Will, you will need to follow formalities set out by the Probate Registry. The steps to follow can be found on the Probate Registry website.

Store it at home if you have a fireproof safe