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Elderly
Clients Preparing
and Structuring your Will Probate
FitzPatricks
Solicitors - Business - Property - Family
FitzPatricks
have been making Wills for many decades. We have worked hard
to keep them straightforward and use simple language so that they
can be understood. The challenges and situations described
are all common and we know how to deal with them. Only two
or three may apply to you.
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Challenges
- Specify
funeral instructions (not necessary but helpful)
- Choose
your own executors who will have authority to deal with
your estate at once, without waiting to be appointed by
the Court·
- Choose
guardians for young children (not necessary if it
will hold up the other things you want to do but guardians
for young children ought to be appointed)·
- Consider
whether you want to give legacies to grandchildren or
friends or whether you wish to give specific things
to particular people·
- Maybe
you wish to benefit one or more charities and don't
know which ones·
- Have
you considered what might happen if you and your spouse/partner
die together·
- What
age, if you have young children, do you want them to
inherit·
- If
you, your husband and your children "are all in
the car together" do you wish to think about how
your assets are to be divided·
- Do
you intend some people to benefit but are not quite sure
how to go about this·
- Consider,
if you have a spouse or partner and also have children
from a previous marriage·
- Have
you other dependants who ought to be considered·
- Are
you the sort of people who say "my children get
on so well there'll be no argument after their parents have
gone"? If so, congratulations - there are far fewer
families like this than parents would like to believe, especially
when the children have families and commitments of their
own
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Clients
- Anyone
without a Will
- Anyone
who has not made a Will since getting married
- Anyone
who wants to benefit helpful friends or charities
- Anyone
who has family items to go to specific people
- Anyone
whose close relations may be vulnerable through
age or incapacity, or possible divorce or bankruptcy proceedings
- Anyone
getting divorced or moving house or co-habiting
- Anyone
with young children who need guardians or who thinks
the children should not get all that money until they've
learned not to spend it too quickly·
- Anyone
who believes his or her death will cause excessive tax
to be paid to the Government
- Anyone
with no immediate relations so that their estate
will go to distant long-forgotten relations or those they
fell out with years ago.
- Anyone
with no relations at all, whose assets will then
go to the Government
- Anyone
who has just started a business and needs to ensure
the executors have power to run it for as long as it takes
to sell it.
- Anyone
with an established business who wants, as far as
possible, to ensure its continuity.
- Anyone
who made a Will so long ago they have forgotten where
it is.
- Anyone
who made a Will five or more years ago, or whose
family or financial circumstances have changed since
their last Will, so that it needs updating.
- Anyone
who does not want to leave things in the sort of mess that
will earn lawyers lots of money when they come to sort out
all the arguments
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INTESTACY
How
FitzPatricks help where someone dies without a Will - go to
Probate
HOME
MADE WILLS
Of
course people can make home-made Wills, often successfully.
The trouble is that if there is any doubt about what home-made
Wills are intended to achieve, you will not be alive to explain. There
are also important rules about signing and witnessing Wills and
these do have to be complied with exactly. Time was when legal
dinners included toasts to "Home-made Will Makers" as
a fruitful source of income for lawyers. And with reason.
WILL-MAKING
KITS AND COMPANIES
Yes,
you can make make your Will with will-kits or will-making
companies. Remember, though, that the Law gives rights to
Beneficiaries who will be able to sue the adviser who makes the
Will. Solicitors are insured against such claims. Not
everyone else is. Can be risky.
SHOULD
YOU SEE YOUR SOLICITOR WHEN MAKING YOUR WILL?
Yes
you should, and your Solicitor must be satisfied about your identity,
that you understand the size of your estate, have considered any
responsibilities you may have to family or friends, and make sure
you are not being influenced or put under pressure by someone hoping
to benefit from your Will. Both you and your Solicitor need
also to be clear about your instructions. None of this can
easily be done from afar. FitzPatricks do not make Wills without
meeting their clients. "E-commerce" Wills are too
dangerous with the result that professional indemnity insurers are starting to remind
Solicitors of the risks.
ELDERLY
CLIENTS
While
making your Will, you should also consider making an Enduring Power
of Attorney. These tend to be made by elderly clients when
there is a need for the sort of urgency that defeats rational thinking.
We all have to plan for old age and the planning should not be delayed
- potentially, we are all elderly clients - and when we get to forty
it is time to plan ahead. Enduring Powers of Attorney should
be made when you are fit, well and unrushed.
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