About wills 23 September 2014 at 6:09PM in Over 50s MoneySaving 3 replies 2.3K views

Mrs_pbradley936

I have a question about wills. My husband and I have "mirror wills" and have them in a large tin box along with all our other important paperwork. The solicitor that drew them up has since retired due to ill health so nobody could get confirmation from him if they got lost. My question is are wills registered and available to interested parties?


On films and in books I have seen people turn up at the solicitors to have the will read but in practice that has never happened in my family. We just get informed of the death, attend the funeral and a relative (executor) will say what we have inherited.

Savvy_Sue

So do you have copies, or the originals? It will be fairly clear which ...

If you've got the originals, you can pay a one off and very reasonable fee to register them with the Probate Service. There's a link somewhere, probably on the Deaths, Funerals & Probate board but I can't search for it right now.

If it's the copies, then the solicitor should have passed all his files on to someone else local and it should be possible to find out who.

Mrs_pbradley936

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

So do you have copies, or the originals? It will be fairly clear which ...

If you've got the originals, you can pay a one off and very reasonable fee to register them with the Probate Service. There's a link somewhere, probably on the Deaths, Funerals & Probate board but I can't search for it right now.

If it's the copies, then the solicitor should have passed all his files on to someone else local and it should be possible to find out who.

The have been sealed in an envelope to be opened in the event that one of us dies. Is that a bit too dramatic?

Savvy_Sue

Mrs_pbradley936 wrote: »

The have been sealed in an envelope to be opened in the event that one of us dies. Is that a bit too dramatic?

As long as it's going to be easy to find, and opening it doesn't damage it, and it's the originals inside, that's fine ...