Wills

Ebenezerscrooge

I own a house with my wife under joint tenancy rules. All my pension scheme benefits (including 4 x salary death in service benefits) to date are written under discretionary trust, with my wife as the nominated benficiary in all cases. With very little in the way of savings, and in fact few assets at all outside of the matrimonial home and the pension scheme benefits, what is the point in making a will?

DVardysShadow

The point is to think it through thoroughly and not make assumptions by default.

For example, you seem to have assumed that you will predecease your wife. Suppose it happens the other way. What do you want to happen? Suppose she predeceases you, in an epidemic of cholera and you go a week later and didn't get around to recognising you needed to write a will because your assumptions had been pre-empted?

Ebenezerscrooge

Well, my wife is in the same position, asset wise and pension scheme benefit wise, as me.

Outbreak of cholera....what are the chances?

I know that dying intestate is not a good idea on second death. We could die at the same time, I suppose....

Errata

The point is, what if your wife drops dead at breakfast time tomorrow.? And you drop drop dead three hours later ?
Or both of you are killed next Saturday in a car crash? Who gets what then?
Your loot, your choice - but only if you make a will.

Mojisola

If you are happy with the rules of who will get your money when you die, maybe you don't need a will - https://www.youngandpearce.co.uk/intestrules.htm - but it makes life much easier for the surviving spouse if there is a will. Coping with a death is bad enough without all the extra red tape.

Have you given any thought to what would happen to personal effects - family photos, etc?

getmore4less

Ebenezerscrooge wrote: »

Well, my wife is in the same position, asset wise and pension scheme benefit wise, as me.

Outbreak of cholera....what are the chances?

I know that dying intestate is not a good idea on second death. We could die at the same time, I suppose....

And that is more likely(close in time) than you may think, what ages are you how often do you travel together?

Don't forget the multi generation death situaton if you travel with parents or children.

What are the total assets in this group?

Do a asset cascade on death in different orders to see where it ends up.

Baggysdad

The OP is right - neither him nor his wife need to make a Will.

But as subsequent posters have pointed out, he and his wife could die at the same time or within a short space of time or when one of them dies, the other may have dementia and not have the capacity to make a Will.

The other thing to watch is that whoever does first will leave everything to whoever dies last. If whoever dies last dies without leaving a Will, the combined wealth will be left to their own family, as per the link above. Which means that the family of whoever dies first get nothing. Doing wills now, it can be stipulated that whoever dies last leaves half to their own family and half to the other family so that both families get something.

Doing two wills now is not double the cost of doing one later and covers so many more bases that its worth doing sooner rather than later.