Free Wills Fortnight

Biggles

I was looking at http://www.tenminutewill.co.uk/main.cgi. Anyone got any experience of it?

It would probably work out cheaper than one of these 'free wills' in the end.

Norman-B

Biggles wrote: »

I was looking at http://www.tenminutewill.co.uk/main.cgi. Anyone got any experience of it?

It would probably work out cheaper than one of these 'free wills' in the end.

Anyone care to comment?

br1anstorm

hurrah wrote: »

http://www.fwfscotland.org.uk/

Yes there's a website... but it appears not to have been updated for six months, the current links (supposedly to find participating solicitors) don't work, the contact phone number is an answerphone and messages left elicit no reply, and emails likewise remain unanswered. Not very impressive. I wonder what the charities associated with this campaign think of such abysmal marketing...

br1anstorm

Willman_Rodders

Just a word of warning.

As a professional willwriter my experience is that you do get your wills for free subject to a donation to charity. A couple of points to note though...

1. A previous post suggested a donation of £65; won't that look good in your will? How mean are you? If you are going to give something, give something with value! the solicitor may well put pressure upon you for that very reason.

2. Your choice of charities is limited. Do you want to give to one of those chosen few?

3. Watch out for a residuary gift e.g. 'I give 1% of my estate to charity X' It looks asmall donation but for an estate worth £300,000 thats £3,000. Thats far more than going to the most expensive will writer.

4. Look out for pressure from your solicitor to appoint them as executors. This is a very common way that solicitors recoup their costs. Often charging between 3 to 5% of your estate they make a very nice income from Probate work.

Not wishing to stop donations to charities I would personally suggest that you make your will by whichever method you prefer; do not wait for free will week.

turnbull

Dead right. £65 is a joke to leave a charity in a will and will surely be more costly to administer!

RufusA

Another little bump for this thread.

Free Wills Fortnight is running at the moment for 2008. Details of participating solicitors etc:

http://www.freewillsfortnight.org.uk/

HTH - Rufus.

localhero

And further to Willman Rodder's comments your 'free' Will will be for the most absolute basic Will.

Expect to pay the difference if you want anything more than that.

jatnikapyar

It is on now in the southeast.
Go to Will Aid, put your postcode in and details of participating solicitors appears. The wills are done by them and you donate to Willaid in three ways as follows: online on the site.
send them a cheque.
or give the solicitor a cheque made to Willaid.
The donation is £70.00p and is shared between 6 charities.
The info is all on the site.
The solicitors do it "Free" to get new and future clients.

Hawkeye4aneye

However as localhero pointed out earlier in this thread ONLY basic type wills are included in this and anything else you want such as Trusts cost extra.

Also the Solicitors do tend to push them selves in as Executors or substitute Executors. Also they offer to keep the will which when the person dies the Executor (if they NOT appointed) often feels obliged to let the Solicitors get Probate. It happens I've worked in Solicitors offices where this all applies.

Biggles

Is there competition here? There seems to be http://www.freewillsmonth.org.uk/, which closes on Friday and http://www.willaid.org.uk/, which runs through November. It must be a profitable area, then!

If you've got to pay 'a minimum of £75' and suffer sales pitches to be Executors, I'd rather do what we did this year and select a member of the Institute of Professional Willwriters (www.ipw.org.uk). Same price, less hassle. Arguably more skill/qualifications.