Are wills legally binding, if not then why bother creating one?

twopenny

What Sherambler said is correct.

First and foremost the will left the property to his wife should he die first. That was his wish.

Once that is done the will has been excuted according to his wishes. The property is then hers to dispose of. His children cannot benefit.

Seems the TV programme was biased to make a drama of the situation. A badly thought out will by them both as it could have worked the other way.

Marcon

Gobsh said:

Updated

Seems that wills can only be used to leave your estate directly to someone and that any caviats beyond that can be ignored (pointless)

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Are wills legally binding, if not then why bother creating one?

I watched a program on wills where a couple created wills to benefit each other, and on the death of both, to be distributed between their 3 children equally, her one child and his two children, all from previous marriages.

He died and she changed the will leaving everything to her son and nothing to his children. The programme was about them challenging the will.

The judge made the decision that his will was not legally binding and just reflected his wishes which was totally bizarre, if not only fit the fact that allll wills are legally binding and reflect their wishes.

My question is really that

Are wills legally binding, if not then why bother creating one?

Don't believe all you watch - and make sure you have a will drawn up by a solicitor, which reflects what you want to happen to your assets when you die.

RAS

This is exactly why posters here advise that people use a STEP solicitor to draw up their will, particularly when dealing with blended or step families. Both spouses could have left half their assets to the other, with the other half held in trust for their own children. That would have protected both lots of children, depending who died first.

Interestingly I knew an older couple who married late and who decided to leave their premarital assets to their own birth families rather than each other, despite the possible short-term IHT implications. That was their version of fair as neither wanted to benefit financially from their marriage to the detriment of their spouse's previous family. I assume they made some provision to pay the IHT.

Mojisola

Couples could make mutual wills - basically, wills which could not be altered after the first death - but they are rarely made these days.  

These are not the same as mirror wills which are made by many couples - the first to die trusting that the survivor will keep the distribution of the estate the same.

This trust can fail if the survivor makes a new will or gets remarried or the second will gets mislaid or lost.

It's very common to use trusts to make sure some of the estate is passed on to others than the spouse although the beneficiaries usually don't inherit until after the second death.

theoretica

How far back in your ancestors would you like them having a say in your life and money?  You get a say immediately after your death, but then generally your say is over. 

k12479

Gobsh said:

Seems that wills can only be used to leave your estate directly to someone and that any caviats beyond that can be ignored (pointless)

Even if the wife hadn't changed her will, it couldn't be 'binding'. E.g. if the wife, through choice or necessity, spent all her inheritance and her own assets leaving no estate, then the husbands wishes cannot be fulfilled.

Conversely, she could gift to her own child, depleting her estate whilst sticking to the letter, but not the spirit, of the wills.

RAS

k12479 said:

Gobsh said:

Seems that wills can only be used to leave your estate directly to someone and that any caviats beyond that can be ignored (pointless)

Even if the wife hadn't changed her will, it couldn't be 'binding'. E.g. if the wife, through choice or necessity, spent all her inheritance and her own assets leaving no estate, then the husbands wishes cannot be fulfilled.

Conversely, she could gift to her own child, depleting her estate whilst sticking to the letter, but not the spirit, of the wills.

Not if the Will and property ownership were tied up properly. If the property is TIC, then the deceased's portion is "owned" by the trust, not the spouse. Written properly, the spouse can sell and move, but the the Trust continues to own a portion of the property. If they downsize, the spare capital can be released to the children, used to fund income for the spouse but retaining the capital for the children, or released to the spouse, depending on what's written in the will.

So getting the trust set up properly is key to the will.

We've seen wills completely circumvented by family members stripping estates. One bank had this nasty habit of writing wills leaving the house to the spouse and dividing other assets by class to children. So if savings were used to buy stocks and shares or vice versa, the inheritance of different children was altered. In another case the spouse used an unregistered EPA to sell assets assigned to the children, and pay the value into a joint account they could then squirrel away outside the estate. The bank should never have allowed it to happen.