Appointing Executors for a Will

sparklybear

My existing Will needs to be updated. The current Executors are one relative and one friend. For personal reasons, I do not want to name the friend as an Executor on the new Will, and am reluctant to name the relative. Unfortunately, there are no other family members I can ask. My questions are: is it possible to name only one Executor? Is it possible to name a relative AND a solicitor as joint Executors? Does anyone have any experience of a situation where a solicitor has been appointed as sole Executor, good or bad?
Sorry for all the questions but I will be grateful for any advice you can offer! Thank you.

Keep_pedalling

I would appoint your main beneficiary as your prime executor and your solicitor as a back up. That means the solicitor would only get involved if your prime executor could or would not act as executor when the time comes.

Don't try to DIY this make an appointment with a local solicitor to draft the new will.

sparklybear

Thank you for your reply, Keep_pedalling. Unfortunately, my beneficiaries will mainly be charities! I wasn’t planning to leave anything to the relative who I may keep as an Executor - they are already very well off - but maybe it would be a good idea to leave something to them as an incentive!

maisie_cat

Being an executor without being a beneficiary is a thankless task in my experience. You could either appoint a solicitor, see if the main charity beneficiary can act or leave a legacy to the family member named.

doodling

Hi,

If the main beneficiaries are charities then you might find that one of them is amenable to being appointed as executor.

I would be very reluctant to be executor of a will where a proportion of the residual estate was bequeathed to a charity - charities tend to make executor's lives hell.  I'd step away, let the charity execute and make their life hell instead .

You need to find an executor that will actually want the job.

Flugelhorn

I agree re asking the charity, will be in their interest to get it done. The a non-beneficiary exec may  get a hard time from the charity and probably wish they had never agreed

sparklybear

Thank you all for your very helpful replies. You’ve given me a lot of food for thought!

theoretica

If you do appoint a charity as executor - which seems fair if they are getting the money - it is probably worth being more explicit than usual about any relatives or friends being entitled to keepsakes, family photos or whatever. 

p00hsticks

doodling said:

I would be very reluctant to be executor of a will where a proportion of the residual estate was bequeathed to a charity - charities tend to make executor's lives hell.

This is something that often gets repeated on this board and elsewhere, but I wonder how often it is actually from personal experience and how often just something someone heard or read somewhere second hand.

I'm in the end process of wrapping up an estate, whicih left two charities (among others) as residual beneficiaries. Due to lockdowns and other covid issues and a protracted house sale, it's taken me over two years to get to this point, but I've found the charities nothing but sympathetic and respectful during the process, with minimal contact and eventually being very grateful when I was recently finally able to get their bequest to them.

SiliconChip

p00hsticks said:

doodling said:

I would be very reluctant to be executor of a will where a proportion of the residual estate was bequeathed to a charity - charities tend to make executor's lives hell.

This is something that often gets repeated on this board and elsewhere, but I wonder how often it is actually from personal experience and how often just something someone heard or read somewhere second hand.

I'm in the end process of wrapping up an estate, whicih left two charities (among others) as residual beneficiaries. Due to lockdowns and other covid issues and a protracted house sale, it's taken me over two years to get to this point, but I've found the charities nothing but sympathetic and respectful during the process, with minimal contact and eventually being very grateful when I was recently finally able to get their bequest to them.

My interpretation of previous posts on this subject is that if a charity is left a percentage of an estate then they are duty bound to ensure that the amount they receive is as high as possible, and that could mean that they object to (for instance) the sale of a property at a lower value for a quick sale rather than hanging on to get the best price. Your experience seems to contradict that, so maybe it's not always the case, but if I were to include charities in my Will (which I'm not as things stand) I would leave them a fixed amount and make the residual beneficiary/ies someone who isn't going to make such a fuss.

poppystar

p00hsticks said:

doodling said:

I would be very reluctant to be executor of a will where a proportion of the residual estate was bequeathed to a charity - charities tend to make executor's lives hell.

This is something that often gets repeated on this board and elsewhere, but I wonder how often it is actually from personal experience and how often just something someone heard or read somewhere second hand.

I'm in the end process of wrapping up an estate, whicih left two charities (among others) as residual beneficiaries. Due to lockdowns and other covid issues and a protracted house sale, it's taken me over two years to get to this point, but I've found the charities nothing but sympathetic and respectful during the process, with minimal contact and eventually being very grateful when I was recently finally able to get their bequest to them.

I can second that. My father dealt with a Will that went similarly. He sent a polite letter to the charities initially and there was no pressure at all. But these were small charities so may not have the legal heft of larger ones and there was no house in the residual estate the charities shared as it was left to two other beneficiaries - so the charity bequests came from financial assets rather than anything where value might be subject to challenge.