Free and Cheap Wills discussion area

shelllanc

Just want to add that my in laws had mirrored wills completed by a big chain of solicitors in their offices a few years ago at a cost of £200 each. We never checked them as didnt see the need, relying on the solicitors duty of care. Unfortunately on the death of my father in law, we discovered that incorrectly the beneficiaries had been added above my mother in law, and therefore they stood to inherit their sum in law before her. As the money was in the house, she was then sued by two of my late father in laws niece's and forced the sell the house. WE fought and fought this with a contentious probate lawyer, but the stress of it all killed her a few months later. Everyone fell out, and the house was left to rack and ruin, with the nieces still insisting on taking what was now the lions share of the property value. As fate has it, the house was discovered to be subsiding some 14 months later, and was literally worth a third of the value originally thought. The nieces stood to inherit once from each will, and were basically getting more than the couples own children, in error of the solicitors mistakes. The legal bill came to more than the value of my husbands and his siblings shares and they ended up with hardly anything. I have since trained to be a lawyer myself and am currently setting up as a will writer, but my advice is dont assume that because you pay more, or go to a solicitor that they will write a will correctly for you. Double check yourself on sites like this, as a simple clerical error can cost so much when its too late. By the way we also tried to sue the solicitors who wrote the will, but it was like hitting a brick wall, as it was badly drafted, and didnt reflect their wishes, we hit obstacle after obstacle and when the bill reached £10k we gave up..

Errata

^ This proves one should always check a will and understand it thoroughly before signing it. That's the responsibility of the willmaker.

Mojisola

Errata wrote: »

^ This proves one should always check a will and understand it thoroughly before signing it. That's the responsibility of the willmaker.

We had several amended drafts of our wills before settling on the final version.

I can't understand someone not going over a will extremely carefully before signing it.

Having had the experience of the solicitor giving my parents each others wills to sign, I now double-check after the signatures as well!

John_Pierpoint

shelllanc wrote: »

Just want to add that my in laws had mirrored wills completed by a big chain of solicitors in their offices a few years ago at a cost of £200 each. We never checked them as didnt see the need, relying on the solicitors duty of care. Unfortunately on the death of my father in law, we discovered that incorrectly the beneficiaries had been added above my mother in law, and therefore they stood to inherit their sum in law before her. As the money was in the house, she was then sued by two of my late father in laws niece's and forced the sell the house. WE fought and fought this with a contentious probate lawyer, but the stress of it all killed her a few months later. Everyone fell out, and the house was left to rack and ruin, with the nieces still insisting on taking what was now the lions share of the property value. As fate has it, the house was discovered to be subsiding some 14 months later, and was literally worth a third of the value originally thought. The nieces stood to inherit once from each will, and were basically getting more than the couples own children, in error of the solicitors mistakes. The legal bill came to more than the value of my husbands and his siblings shares and they ended up with hardly anything. I have since trained to be a lawyer myself and am currently setting up as a will writer, but my advice is dont assume that because you pay more, or go to a solicitor that they will write a will correctly for you. Double check yourself on sites like this, as a simple clerical error can cost so much when its too late. By the way we also tried to sue the solicitors who wrote the will, but it was like hitting a brick wall, as it was badly drafted, and didnt reflect their wishes, we hit obstacle after obstacle and when the bill reached £10k we gave up..

My commiserations on a very sad story - who was the executor?

Was the tax man involved, because the estate's value was over the nil rate band for Inheritance Tax (currently £325k) ?

A common trick in my experience in to create a will with no thought to the effect of discovering the tax man is cuckoo in the nest, with tax rules overriding the wishes of the deceased and leading to unexpected results.

Tom_Smith_3

Just FYI, now that the original article on where to find a free will is fairly old, Net Lawman offers a number of simple will templates for free without the usual catches of being a member of a trade union or being over 65. There is also plenty of advice on the site about writing a will yourself. If you are exploring the option of writing a will yourself, then it might be a resource worth looking at.

Timothygoldsmith

Does anyone know were to enter the discount code for the Which Wills website? Its a £50 off for mirrored wills, but there appears to be no coupon/discount box at the checkout!?

MrPickup

Get a free online Will here - getmywill.co.uk

Use the following codes to get it for free.
Single Wills: MYFREEWILL
Mirror Wills: FREEWILLS

Expert checks available. All wills are fully legal once signed and witnessed.

elektra

^
mmm....

Their 'about us' link tells you nothing about the company.

Buried in their FAQ they mention Get My Will Limited' which is not registered at Companies House.

andi1872

elektra wrote: »

^
mmm....

Their 'about us' link tells you nothing about the company.

Buried in their FAQ they mention Get My Will Limited' which is not registered at Companies House.

A whois lookup shows the registrant as "PRC Media Limited"

Sandie5

Hi all,

Ok so, looking for some advice. We are a married couple about to have our first child and looking to organise our first Will. We are currently living in France temporarily until November and have been for 2 years, we have a property in Scotland and when we move back to the UK are probably going to be coming back to England. Our current life insurance policies are from the UK. Where do I start? Do we need to organise a Will in France because we are currently living here or in the UK because we have property there? Or am I making this more complicated than it needs to be?

Many thanks in advance for any advice.