Making a Will

midster

morbid subject I know..

but can anyone suggest a good (cheap) way of making a Will.
I have been quoted £400 by a solicitor, and had no idea it was so expensive!

cheers,
-T.

whitewing

Do a search here on Will Aid.

MrMicawber_2

The Institute of Professional Willwriters is an organisation whose members have taken special qualifications specifically in will writing. Phone 08546 442042 or go to www.ipw.org.uk to find members local to you.

Not all solicitors belong to it. I don't know much about it but there was an article in the Telegraph some months back that suggested value would be added.

artha

midster wrote: »

morbid subject I know..

but can anyone suggest a good (cheap) way of making a Will.
I have been quoted £400 by a solicitor, and had no idea it was so expensive!

cheers,
-T.

I have also been thinking of making a will in conjunction with my wife. I don't think my affairs are that complex. We have one child (age 27).
basically whichever of us dies first leaves everything to the other (i.e house, contents and savings). The survivor then leaves everything to our daughter.

If (God forbid)our daughter dies before either of us then the same applies but on the death of the sole survivor we don't care who gets it all as we won't be worried about it. Briefly explained this to our solicitor on a recent visit to sort out the sale of my deceased mothers house and he thought about £150 max would be the cost of drawing up a Will.

My mother(widow) died recently without a Will and we had no problems in sorting out the affairs and inheritance.

It makes me wonder whether a DIY Will could be appropriate in relatively simple circumstances?

MrMicawber_2

On the other hand a simple will shoud be cheap(er). So to be safe it might be worth spending some money. Why not phone around and ask for some prices - got £150 and £400 so far. It does seem about as random as building quotes.

sloughflint

artha wrote: »

I have also been thinking of making a will in conjunction with my wife. I don't think my affairs are that complex. We have one child (age 27).
basically whichever of us dies first leaves everything to the other (i.e house, contents and savings). The survivor then leaves everything to our daughter.

If (God forbid)our daughter dies before either of us then the same applies but on the death of the sole survivor we don't care who gets it all as we won't be worried about it. Briefly explained this to our solicitor on a recent visit to sort out the sale of my deceased mothers house and he thought about £150 max would be the cost of drawing up a Will.

My mother(widow) died recently without a Will and we had no problems in sorting out the affairs and inheritance.

It makes me wonder whether a DIY Will could be appropriate in relatively simple circumstances?

Because I have been exposed to badly ( solicitor) drafted Wills, I am always concerned when I read people contemplate to DIY.
I think it is better for people to consult someone ( who knows what they are talking about) to make people consider alternatives/pitfalls in their ideas.

The first thing that came to my mind was that under your arrangement, your daughter is not guaranteed an inheritance.

Eg if you died first and your wife re-married, she would need a new Will. If she made the same sort of Will as you propose and her new spouse outlived her, there's no guarantee that A) he'd have a Will pass the estate on to your daughter.

MickKnipfler

I thought there was something in Martin's email? Get a free will and make a donation to charity.

monkey_spank

MrMicawber wrote:

The Institute of Professional Willwriters is an organisation whose members have taken special qualifications specifically in will writing. Phone 08546 442042 or go to www.ipw.org.uk to find members local to you.

I had never heard of this organisation until I ventured into this forum looking for information, following several problems that friends and family have experienced with wills and probate at the hands of incompetent and unethical solicitors and willwriters.

There is a regular contributor to this forum, whose posts I have found extremely informative who alerted me to this organisation.

I happen to agree with their stance on regulation, and having employed the services of a member local to me I can recommend them thoroughly. I didn't need to take a day off work either to be fleeced by a solicitor. All the fees were fixed and made known to me in advance. :T

whitewing wrote:

Do a search here on Will Aid.

No thanks. As someone on another thread has said, solicitors don't do anything for nothing. If you have anything beyond the absolute bog standard Will you pay hundreds extra. Then there's £250 each for a power of attorney. On top of that they'll be looking to become your executor, which is their ultimate payday.

There's no free lunch - I can't believe that Martin Lewis the consumer champion is endorsing this scheme.

JoolzS

£400 sounds horribly expensive to me. However, don't even consider going down the DIY Will route. I used to work as a legal secretary and I've known solicitors earn thousands (completely legitimately) sorting out very badly written DIY Wills. Solicitors, in my experience, don't want to fleece anyone and if you phone a few you should find that most of them offer "each to each other and then to offspring" type Wills for around £150.00 to £200.00 for the pair.

It's been a long time since I worked as a legal secretary but I do also remember that some charities offered a free Will writing service, through a solicitor, for free. The charities hoped for, and the solicitors encouraged, a bequest to that charity in the Will, but it was never forced. That may still exist.

Julie

monkey_spank

JoolzS wrote:

I've known solicitors earn thousands (completely legitimately) sorting out very badly written DIY Wills

And ironically enough sorting out disastrous Wills that other solicitors have written. Check out this thread for a classic example:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1120993&highlight=probate

JoolzS

I never saw that original thread but having read it I will add something else in defence of solicitors. Most solicitors (not all) who deal with probate work also deal with conveyancing. Conveyancing takes priority - it's just a simple fact. Conveyancing is very immediate part of legal work, probate simply isn't. I have never known a solicitor to try and drag more work (and therefore more fees) out of any conveyancing or probate work, but I have seen the probate work drop to the bottom of the pile. It's a very simple equation - so many hours a day, so much work, something drops to the bottom - conveyancing important, probate unimportant (in the whole scheme of things). I would still use a solicitor to draw up an important document, such as a Will.

Some solicitors occasionally make mistakes - I'd love to hear of anyone who has never, ever made a mistake in their entire working life. If a solicitor does completely screw up a Will then their firm's insurance will cover the claim. If you do a DIY Will and screw it up then only your intended beneficiaries will suffer.

Julie