Wills
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.
- 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
- 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
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.