Making a Will

Luxton28

Hi,

I am looking to make a simple Will for just myself and looking at using Farewill to draw this up.

Has anyone used them and can recommend them or had any issues with them?
They state that for a £10 subscription per year you can make unlimited changes to your Will and if you opt out of this you would need to pay £100 per change.

Do all Will writers charge for this if you need to make a change on your Will?
Happy to be recommended any other Will writers that others use?
Thanks

Keep_pedalling

Few people on this board will recomend using unregulated will writers to draw up one of the most important documents you will ever make. 

You really should use a local solicitor who will draft you will after a face to face meeting where they have pointed out all the what if situations you have not considered.

Luxin

Looking at Farewill's Terms and Conditions webpage, clause 10 says they won't: provide legal or tax advice; check that you are who you say you are; whether you were put under undue influence; make sure you understood the will; mitigate the risk of claims on your assets, or check that you and your witnesses signed it correctly. Looks like you get what you pay for i.e. not much.

Robin9

Another vote for using a solicitor.

They will ask the "what if "  questions that you won't have thought about. What if your beneficiary dies before you .....................

Cairnpapple

I am a nerd, I read this board too much and I even listen to wills and probate podcasts that are aimed at practitioners even though I have never worked in this area of law. I have an incredibly simple family situation (married, no kids) and financial situation (one jointly owned property, savings, ISAs, pensions, no need or desire to avoid inheritance tax). 

When we recently went to see a solicitor to do new wills, the solicitor asked a question that I hadn't prepared for, which related to a bit of law that I'd never heard of. Which made me happy with my decision to see a professional to do those what-ifs.

There's an article on finding free/cheap wills, including wills drafted by a solicitor, at
https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/free-cheap-wills/

RAS

Will writers are unregulated. If they go out of business after a decade or so, you've already paid "storage" fees which you cannot recover for a will no-one can find.

At least a solicitor's paperwork should be taken transferred by the SRA to another provider. Although it could take months to find if the timing was unfortunate. 

You can of course pay a single fee to HMCTS to store your will for life. Although I'd suggest you review every couple of decades, or as life dictates.

Depends in your appetite for risk.

Savvy_Sue

RAS said:

You can of course pay a single fee to HMCTS to store your will for life. Although I'd suggest you review every couple of decades, or as life dictates.

Agree with everything else you said, and it always surprises me how some people seem to think that they'll need to review their wills every five minutes or so. 

We're retirement age now, and we've done two wills in our lives: one when we first had children, and another after they were all growed up and it was time to do LPAs. 

The wills are very similar, and a decent solicitor will ask the questions you need to answer in order to future-proof them - if not for ever, then at least for any easily foreseen events for whatever life stage you are at. 

The idea of reviewing your will every year - would love to know if ANYBODY does that?

Keep_pedalling

We have had ours in place for 10 years and we are just getting round to reviewing them, mainly for the minor legacies. 

Any one who has not done it for around 20 years should review as a matter of urgency there are still lots of NRB trusts lurking to cause executors and beneficiaries some major headaches.

poppystar

Savvy_Sue said:

RAS said:

You can of course pay a single fee to HMCTS to store your will for life. Although I'd suggest you review every couple of decades, or as life dictates.

Agree with everything else you said, and it always surprises me how some people seem to think that they'll need to review their wills every five minutes or so. 

We're retirement age now, and we've done two wills in our lives: one when we first had children, and another after they were all growed up and it was time to do LPAs. 

The wills are very similar, and a decent solicitor will ask the questions you need to answer in order to future-proof them - if not for ever, then at least for any easily foreseen events for whatever life stage you are at. 

The idea of reviewing your will every year - would love to know if ANYBODY does that?

I must admit I know quite a few people who do. For me it’s more like every four or five years. If you have close family I can see you probably wouldn’t need updates as things won’t change too much but when you don’t have that then people and charities/priorities come in and out of your life every few years. Also if you’re leaving to friends of a similar age they do start dying off as well! 

With only the £325k allowance I personally would prefer money to go to charities rather than be used up in IHT. I guess if you have allowances of £1m that is less of any issue that needs an eye kept on it.

poppystar

As far as Farewill are concerned I did attend a talk given by one of their people (they are used by the RNLI for their free wills AIUI) and was impressed by her presentation and discussion which was mainly full of all the advice we see on here - except of course for using a solicitor! 

Luxton28

Thanks for everyone's responses, very useful. 

I intend to leave all of my estate to a charity and i just wanted to make sure i do it right so it doesn't end up all going back to the Crown!  

Sounds like a Solicitor would be the best route.