DIY Will pitfalls

chrissy7

Hi, my elderly mother wants to make a simple Will, using a form from WH Smiths, leaving everything equally between her two daughters and in the event of one of them predeceasing the other that daughter's share to go to her children. We are anxious about legal wording, is it important to use jargon or could she just write out the above wishes naming individuals and get it witnessed? My sister and I would also be executors, we already have full Lasting Power of Attorney for our mother.

batchoy

A few years ago I put together a will using the form from WH Smiths and based it on free templates for England available on the web. Having recently dealt with my late mother's estate I was both happy and angry to find that her will was almost word for word identical to mine, the only difference being the names and addresses. Happy because my will should be OK and angry because I also found the bill for the solicitors fees for putting the will together and the for removing a couple of defunct paragraphs when my father died.

Reading around, the general consensus amongst those with no particular axe to grind is that if the will is simple then do it yourself, if not get a professional to do it

Tiffany_Aching

As said above, if the will is simple (eg - I give my house to my cat and my money to my son) then DIY it. If you have £10 in your bank then don't be specific and say £10 if you want them to have all your money as ten pounds is all they will get, even if you then went on to win the lottery! Same with the house, if you say my house at 8 Any Place and you then have to move, the house is no longer yours to gift and the cat gets nothing!

batchoy

One further thought, having written the will it is worth depositing it with the Probate Service. http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/probate/depositing-documents-for-safe-keeping You then have peace of mind that it is in safe place, and not likely to be destroyed, lost or stolen which could happen if it is kept in the home, and you don't have the issue of a solicitor ceasing to trade and having to track down where their records have gone should you deposit it with a solicitor, or as in our case the solicitor misplacing the most recent will and trying to fob you off with a previous version.

Mojisola

Our will includes a "disaster" clause so that if all of us go together, the money goes to nominated charities (although it could be more distant relatives or anyone else - even the "government" as in the recent news story.

It's really unlikely but it does happen in some sad cases.

joerugby

Cancer Research UK offer a free will service for over 55s. They like you to leave them something but it's not mandatory

This has got to be better than diy

http://support.cancerresearchuk.org/support-us/donate/donate-money-in-your-will/free-will-service