Revising a will...options

Stubod

Hi all, a few years ago we used the "free wills" service and a local solicitor. It is a relatively simple mirror will, and we  just specified percentages to various charities, family and friends.

However we are now looking to make some changes, mainly changing a couple of beneficiaries, and also changing some of the percentages. 

I contacted the solicitor who advised a cost of over £600 to do this. (I understand that they need to make money). But as we have a copy of the original will I thought we may just re-type it ourselves, makimng the changes we want, and then getting it signed by 2 independant parties?

...just looking for any advise regarding this, and I assume we would have to tell the solicitor to destroy the original will??

Many thanks for any replies...

Brie

Can't properly answer your question but someone said on here once that you shouldn't use percentages if charities are involved as sometimes they will be rottweilers if they think they'll get less than they should, i.e. not want a house to be sold cheaper than they like etc.  Might be better to say the X% up to £Z or similar.

And others say you should never DIY something so important.  

Olinda99

Also if the will is in PDF format or even if you scan it in there are online free converters that will convert the text into for example a Microsoft docx format

Stubod

Brie said:

Can't properly answer your question but someone said on here once that you shouldn't use percentages if charities are involved as sometimes they will be rottweilers if they think they'll get less than they should, i.e. not want a house to be sold cheaper than they like etc.  Might be better to say the X% up to £Z or similar.

And others say you should never DIY something so important.  

..ta for the feedback, but the original solicotor advisrd percentages were best. 

Also the original will was drawn up by a solicitor, so if we use exactly the same wording, but just change a couple of names and percentages I don't think this would be an issue??

Savvy_Sue

Well, you could always go for another 'free' will, which would replace the current one. 

You COULD retype it and make the changes you want, but if you make a mistake with the signing / witnessing then it can get tricky, and if you make a mistake with the retyping as well (although I'm not saying solicitors never make mistakes!!!) 

And the advantage of getting a fresh one done is that you get the benefit of being asked all the 'what if' questions again - and the questions to ask may change, and the solicitor may point out things you need to think about now which were not issues then. 

FlorayG

Just get another free one. I recently completely re-wrote my will through a charity site; they even sent me back to the same solicitor I used for the first one
It's much easier to write a new will than amend an old one