You have made your Will, signed it and it has been stored in a safe place. As the years pass by you may not give your Will a second thought except that it is all completed.
So where is your Will now?
You will need to think about who made your Will.
- Did you make it with a solicitor or via any other Will Writing provider
- Was it stored with the Will maker or with an external storage company?
- Do you have documentation to confirm this?
- Are they still in existence?
- Have they re-located their premises?
Now is the time to try and locate where your Will is.
- The first clue would be to locate your copy of your Will as they may have the Solicitors or Will writer’s details
- Contact them by telephone to confirm that they are still holding your Will – you can carry out an internet search to find out whether they are still in existence – for a solicitor you can use the “Find a Solicitor search” on the Law Society website.
- Should your solicitor no longer be in existence you can make enquires with the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) who may hold details of who are now holding the Wills and other documents for the solicitor who made your Wills.
- You can also contact other solicitors in the local area who may have knowledge of the local solicitor community and could point you in the right direction as to who may be holding your Will
- If a Will Writing Company is no longer in existence it may be more difficult to try and locate where your original Will is located. Will Writers are not regulated and therefore do not have the same obligations to their clients as Solicitors do. We would suggest to contact the Society for Will Writers who may hold the information that you need but please be aware that if they are holding your Will they do charge a release fee for your own Will. Whether or not you have been advised of this fee when the Wills are transferred into their custody.
To ensure that you know where your original Will is being stored contact your solicitor every year or every other year to ensure that they are still in existence.
Should a solicitor close its practice and transfer the storage of their Wills and any other original documents they are holding on behalf of their clients to another firm of solicitors, there is an obligation on both the outgoing firm and the receiving firm to advise you of the transfer of your documents. You then have a choice as to whether you would like them to be moved.
Should your Wills be stored outside of your local area and you wish for them to be more accessible to you now and in the future then we at Oakwood Solicitors can assist you.
We will contact the current holder of your Wills on your behalf and request their transfer to ourselves. We will review your Wills with you (if required) and store your original documents in our Deed Store free of charge.
WHAT TO DO NEXT
For a free initial consultation, call the Wills department on 0113 200 9720, or contact us online here to discuss how we can help you.
