Revising my will

missile

I need to revise my will. It seems simple, but I am really struggling with the basics and would appreciate your comments:
Who did you choose as executor(s) solicitor / family / other?
How did you decide which family members get what?
Have you included a charitable donation(s)?
Many Thanks 

JGB1955

Whilst revising your will may SEEM simple, for peace of mind I would recommend that a solicitor draws it up.

In answer to your specific questions:

• My executors are my spouse and two children.  They can always engage a solicitor to help if they feel it necessary.
• Everything goes to my husband, apart for my share of the house which is shared equally between my two children. If my husband predeceases me, my children get everything.  I haven't left anything to my grandchildren - my children can use a deed of variation to do so, if that's what they want. 
  
• No charitable donations.
  

elsien

I have siblings as executor but will change it to the next generation as we all get older.
Half is an equal split between the next generation. They can debate over my belongings themselves if they want them. Only made a will because if I die intestate the money will go to people who don't need it or who I'm not on good terms with. 
Half the estate to charity. The charities haven't been informed so they don't stick their oar in while probate is happening.  Might change that to a lesser percentage next time I revise it.

Farway

elsien said:

I have siblings as executor but will change it to the next generation as we all get older.
Half is an equal split between the next generation. They can debate over my belongings themselves if they want them. Only made a will because if I die intestate the money will go to people who don't need it or who I'm not on good terms with. 
Half the estate to charity. The charities haven't been informed so they don't stick their oar in while probate is happening.  Might change that to a lesser percentage next time I revise it.

I was always told never use a percentage for charity donation, they are obliged to screw obtain the maximum figure, so can hold up property sales demanding a higher price

Stick to a cash sum, £XYZ to Cat's home etc

cattie

I have chosen a couple of friends about 15 or so years younger than me as my executors. I really didn't want to be paying expensive solicitor fees by having them act in this way, although I did use a solicitor to draw up my will.

There's not a lot of people left in my family alas, but I have an older sister who I've left a modest amount to, which will go back into my estate if she dies before me as I don't want her children to have a claim on it.  The rest of my bequests are to a few friends but the greater part of my estate will go to various charities. As time goes on I might possibly increase the amount these friends receive & reduce the amount that goes to charity.

p00hsticks

I've got my OH and a brother as both executors and beneficiaries - unfortunately we've no children so no close younger relatives to have.

As far as bequests, me and my OH have kept it simple in our (mirror) wills - house is jointly owned so will go to OH outside the estate, remaining estate split between OH and brother.

We deliberately haven't put sums to charities or small bequests, as we don't know what our financial position / posessions will be by the time we die (ideally I'd like to die the day after having spent it all!), and we wanted to keep the will simple.

Instead we;ve written separate informal lists for the other with suggestions as to what other more distant relatives might like to be offered as momentos (e.g. a cousin to get to pick some vinyl records, particular charities and distant younger relatives that we'd like to be given an appropriate amount of money depending on how large the estate is).

Savvy_Sue

Executors: I'd look first at your beneficiaries. Mum and Dad choose me and a sibling to be executors because they thought we'd be the most sensible to do it, for various reasons - sibling and I are 'detail' people, probably the most IT-literate of the family, and both reasonably free of family commitments. DH and I have mirror wills: all to the survivor, then split between the three boys. The survivor is executor with the boys named as substitutes. A sibling had a mirror will with their spouse, survivor to execute, after spouse's death will has been updated to make nephews executors and they are also now the beneficiaries. 

Generally, avoid appointing solicitors as executors, UNLESS it is a poisoned chalice and the beneficiaries (or one of them) will make life difficult for the executor. Edited to add, non-professional executors can always take advice on any particular aspects of the will, and the estate pays - we did that for my parents. 

It's entirely reasonable to leave a bequest to a non-professional executor, and if it's a big estate then a sizeable bequest wouldn't go amiss, IMO. 

Beneficiaries - who gets what: this is an 'it depends', so give it some thought and then discuss with your solicitor - and be prepared to change your mind! 

• If you're talking about 'stuff', consider giving it away in advance. My mum was going to leave various specific gifts in her will, nothing of great value but things of sentimental value, and one particular thing which she knew several of us wanted. Rather than leaving it in the will, the solicitor advised giving it to the favoured child in advance, because a) we could get over any ill-feeling while she was still alive and b) it would avoid any arguments if this thing couldn't be found after death - and there could be several possible explanations for that, varying from it got broken, it got stolen, one of us took it not realising it was intended for another, the house was sold prior to death and in the clearout it was disposed of etc etc etc. 
• If you're thinking money / house, think very carefully before doing an uneven split, even if right now one beneficiary needs it more than another, or seems more deserving than another, or is less irritating than another ... You don't know how things might change, and you might not want to change your will every time that happens. 
• There are some exceptions to this: I know one of two siblings where one has been left the house, because they've always lived there, and the other has as a result been left less than 50% of the estate. In this particular case it won't be an issue, but it might be for others. 
• Another exception is if one of your beneficiaries will always need extra help, eg because of disability or a lack of 'capacity' to organise their own affairs. And IF you are in that situation, take very good advice on this, especially if you need to set up a trust to make provision for ongoing care. 

Charitable donations: entirely up to you. If you don't have anyone to execute the will then you can leave it all to a charity and make them executors. You could leave your funeral wishes somewhere easy to find and specify any donations to go to your favourite charities, and not leave anything in the will. People have already commented on the pitfalls of leaving money to charities in your will. A fixed sum is more straightforward than a %, but even then you need to think about where that fixed sum is coming from: if you leave £1000 to five charities and £1000 to five sons, but your estate is only worth £5000, someone's got to share that reduced amount, and the wording of the will may become critical. 

Savvy_Sue

elsien said:

Half the estate to charity. The charities haven't been informed so they don't stick their oar in while probate is happening.  Might change that to a lesser percentage next time I revise it.

That seems sensible, but I'm going to say something in slight defence of charities: they are REQUIRED to pursue legacies that they know about and as they find out about them, because if they don't then the trustees are in breach of their duty to work for the best interests of the charity. 

Don't shoot me down, because there is one particular charity which has a track record for complete stupidity in this area where they've actually LOST money by pursuing unreasonable court cases. And the tactic of pressurising the executors to take out a loan in order to make the bequest instead of waiting for a property to be sold is also pretty dire. But their bottom line is that they have received notification that a bequest has been left, and they cannot allow it to be forgotten. 

We all know that there's a gap between a will going to probate and the beneficiaries being paid: if the charity learns about a bequest - and some of them pay for a service which notifies them of any - and the executors don't pay PDQ, then they have to ask. And if the bequest is dependent on sale of a house, it may well take some considerable time - but they can't just wait indefinitely. 

missile

Many thanks for all your responses. You have given me some ideas for issues I am struggling with and raised some others I had not considered.

TomokoAdhami

 The executor would be my husband and he can engage solicitor if he wants. But I don't think he would prefer to hire anyone.
It should be equally divided among parents, siblings, and kids. 
I would like to donate something to my husband On a lighter note. haha

Mickey666

JGB1955 said:

Whilst revising your will may SEEM simple, for peace of mind I would recommend that a solicitor draws it up.

In answer to your specific questions:

• My executors are my spouse and two children.  They can always engage a solicitor to help if they feel it necessary.
• Everything goes to my husband, apart for my share of the house which is shared equally between my two children. If my husband predeceases me, my children get everything.  I haven't left anything to my grandchildren - my children can use a deed of variation to do so, if that's what they want. 
  
• No charitable donations.
  

Looks good to me, with one exception.  It's a horrible thought, of course, but have you made any allowance for something catastrophic that none of you survive.   What happens in those tragedies where a whole family is killed in a car crash for example? 

In such circumstances, my will divides my estate in four equal parts to parents, in-laws, sister and sister-in law, but what happens if there is no living beneficiary?  Do the rules of intestacy kick in when a will has no living beneficiaries?