Free and Cheap Wills discussion area

cinderfella

Thanks for trying to answer the post. I did make a contribution in cash to a charity at the time I met the solicitor.
As for losing the original will - words fail me, worse than useless that particular London solicitor. Defeats the object of the exercise !!!
International law does refer to the UK for assets held in some countries.
I agree with an earlier poster that solicitors & probate do not mix well except financially for the solicitor. In fact they are a bunch of shysters IMhO regarding their attitude to exorbitant fees.
I am going to have to employ a people finder service presumably before my demise. The estate will be life changing but not for a solicitor. Shame that I won't be round to organise it!
Incidentally, I am so tight my bum squeaks when I walk !

Savvy_Sue

cinderfella wrote: »

Took advantage of the free wills service last year. I am not UK resident but managed to see a guy in a London firm & got a will drawn up.
The firm went bust & the guy is not responding to emails. Furthermore they could not find the original will.
They did send a draft (the firm that took over) which I am adding a codicil to & depositing with the probate office in London next month.
My problem is that the beneficiaries are my two children whom I have not seen for about thirty years & do not know their whereabouts.
I am assuming that a will naming two children as executors but without an address would be an invalid will.
I had second thoughts about having made the solicitor firm an executor as they gave the impression that money was invented so that they could stuff their boots with it.
Any thoughts ?
Incidentally, I have no desire to meet my offspring again (leaving well alone) but will probably need some sort of address relating to them.

Do you have assets in the UK? If you do not, you don't need a UK will.

Never mind having no address for your children, how will they know you're dead if you're not in contact?

cinderfella

That sums up the situation very well - a communication issue.
The guy at Davenport Lyons (the solicitor firm that went bust owing £13.4 million to creditors earlier this year) had no hesitation in drafting out a will as I have substantial liquid assets in the UK.
Anyway I have resolved the dilemma. The codicil that changes the executors from DL to my children will also include a solicitor to engage a people finder service. After googling I discovered that people finders are a standard tool for solicitors which makes a lot of sense when you think about it.
So all I have to do now is ask a reputable solicitor to act for me ( one that was next door to where I used to work ) & after getting the green light from them, adding their name to the codicil which will be deposited with my will at the probate registry.
Problem hopefully solved.

Thank you for your assistance it helped me think the scenario through even though I managed to confuse myself for a while. (LOL)
Rest Assured the mechanics of the solution should be okay - matter of staying water-tight in the area of will administration.

MrS4Hire

Hi,

My father has no will and will not make one. He is divorced from my mother and has remarried but is estranged from his current wife. I have explained to him as things stand that I am not his next of kin and without a will he is relying on the rules of intestate.

His idea of a funeral arrangement is to leave some money in a jacket pocket with the expectation that either myself or brother will be able to make funeral arrangements for him which apparently he has written on a piece of paper. I have pointed out that on his passing we might not have access to his house and so will not be able to do anything.

If we were able to make his funeral arrangments while he is alive and with his agreement and paid up front, would his next of kin be able to contest this?

Thank you for taking the time to read this and responding if you can.

Mojisola

MrS4Hire wrote: »

My father has no will and will not make one. He is divorced from my mother and has remarried but is estranged from his current wife. I have explained to him as things stand that I am not his next of kin and without a will he is relying on the rules of intestate.

Does he want his current, estranged wife to inherit from him?

If we were able to make his funeral arrangments while he is alive and with his agreement and paid up front, would his next of kin be able to contest this?

He can prepay for his funeral, either through a big company like AgeUK or through a local funeral director (just make sure the money is protected).

He is being foolish and unkind to you, his children, by not writing a will and sorting all this out. He will leave a mess which could turn very unpleasant unless his wife is a very fair woman and respects his wishes and yours.

Doirset2Aus

Having looked through this helpful forum, I’m prompted to pose a thread seeking advice for myself and any other ex-pats in a similar situation.
I’ve lived in Australia since 2007 but have retained UK citizenship and several investment properties in England; I receive a pension paid into my UK bank account and have a few other share and investment trusts on which I currently pay UK income tax. I’m an Aussie citizen being paid full time here and resident for tax purposes in Aus, albeit with very few assets here other than a superannuation pot. I would expect to have to set up two wills, one here and one in UK. My questions are:

1. How do I ensure that the two wills are complementary and don’t end up creating a legal headache for the executor(s)?
2. Is there a simple way of setting up a UK will from overseas?
3. If my main beneficiaries are Australian, is there a way to set up my estate so that it avoids UK inheritance tax? (I appreciate that this may be more appropriate for a more specialised forum)

Grateful for any advice or guidance that your helpful contributors may be able to offer.

Crabapple

A simple statement in each Will stating that it only deals with assets in X country will normally suffice. Each then has to be proved in the appropriate country.

Do you ever travel back to the UK? You could contact a Solicitor here and get matters arranged, then pop in to sign the document when you are here. Alternatively there are bound to be some Solicitors in Australia who have specialists in preparing UK Wills since there are a lot of ex-pats there.

The laws AIUI are very similar but subtly different so you don't want to make a mistake and end up with a Will that isn't valid in the other country.

As to IHT - the Estate in the UK is taxed, not the beneficiaries, so it is immaterial where they live. (Some other taxes would not be payable or could be recovered by foreign beneficiaries but not IHT). If your Estate is over the threshold (£325k) then the tax has to be paid. You would need some specialist advice as there may be ways to move assets or minimise any tax liability here but I don't think this forum will have the knowledge you need.

MrS4Hire

Following up from yesterday's message and reply; thank you. Has anybody had experience of the larger funerals directors? I would appreciate any feed back that you might have?

heygringo

Slightly off thread, but I've quite often questioned why is there no central register for wills, as is for "hatched, matched & despatched?
I've asked this of more than one solicitor, but even they can't give a reason. My bet is that if that were the case, the government would lose out on grabbing intestate situations ie cash.
If a register existed, it would be a simple exercise for family/ relatives to access a legitimate will. A will can be registered with a company called Certainty National Wills, it's free, but it's only worthwhile if family members know of it, whereas an official register would be the first "port of call" for enquires. I could go into darker reasons for thinking that an official register should exist, but that depends on replies, if any, are added to this particular thread.

Crabapple

Practicality springs to mind - you are only born and die once and multiple (as in more than a couple) marriages aren't that common.

There are people out there who make Wills every few months - really, every time there is the slightest change in their circumstances, or they've thought about things a little, or they've fallen out with x y or z.

The main reason the government gets lots of money from Estates is people not making Wills at all rather than there being no register. They still reckon it's only about 1/3 of adults that do. Of the 2/3 lots lose contact with relatives for one reason or another.

Certainty is not always free. The Probate Registry allows you to lodge Wills with them for a small fee, but not many people do.