How to go about updating a will

Benjamin4

My wife and I had our will drawn up by a solicitor in 2018, but we'd like to make a change - specifically regarding the guardianship of our children if we both die. Is that something that could be dealt with in a codicil, or does it mean a whole new will? 

My wife has also changed her surname since the original will was written. Does that matter? All other details / executors / beneficiaries remain the same.

When I approached the solicitor, I was a bit surprised how much these small changes were going to cost!

Is it a bad idea to get the wills from the solicitor, and simply type up a new version that includes the changes, have it signed and witnessed, and then destroy the old copies? Or should I just suck up the £100s that the solicitor wants?!

tacpot12

Has your wife changed her surname due to your marriage? If so, her current Will is invalid anyway (unless it explictily states that it was made "in contemplation of" her the marriage to you.)

You will have two Wills. They may be referred to as one Will if they are mirror wills, but this is incorrect. There are two Wills, hers and yours. 

If the Guardianship of the  children is likely to be contenious in any way, I would recommend making new Wills. (Codacils can be come separated from the original Will). There is also some benefit to making a new Will with a firm that is currently trading to ensure that the Will can be found when it is needed.  

I would recommend shopping around for your Wills. If you are happy with mirror Wills again, you might get this as cheap as £400 at a solicitor.

Part of the reason for the costs is that the Solictor has to start all over again, unless the Wills were made very recently. So they have to gather all the information about your assets and what you want to do with them. They are legally liable if they give you bad advice because they haven't started from scratch, hence most will want to start all over again.

Benjamin4

It does say "...I DECLARE that I make this Will in expectation of my intended marriage with my partner XX and that it shall not be revoked by reason of the said marriage and I FURTHER DECLARE that it shall be effective even if the said marriage is not solemnised", so hopefully the name change is currently covered.

I suppose I'm rather baulking at paying £400 for a will that is only "new" because of some changed names and addresses.

Presumably I can ask the solicitor to hand over the actual signed wills, which I could re-type to create my own updated versions, while destroying the old ones. Why would this be a bad idea? Why would it be any less valid than a new and to all intents and purposes identical will I've paid £400 for?

Benjamin4

I should add that our financial / assets situation has not changed at all since 2018. The wills are absolutely standard "everything to partner, unless they are dead, in which case everything to children, unless they are dead, in which case everything to named relatives". 

As I'm typing this, I realise that the first paragraph of the will, part of which I copied and pasted above, will also need to be changed as we're now married. Perhaps the solicitor is the way to go, as I'm starting to feel that the more that needs to be changed, the higher the risk of ballsing things up!!

I'm hopeful I might be able to negotiate the cost down a bit with the same solicitor used before, as they will not be starting from scratch and the changes are pretty minimal...

silvercar

You don't need to ask the solicitor to hand over the old originals, they are automatically redundant if a new will is made.

You could just leave out the paragraph about contemplation of marriage and change any other names as you see fit.

Up to you if you think that justifies a saving of £400. The only risk is that a solicitor may think of something to include that you haven't addressed.

Benjamin4

Hmmm - so if your child is dead, but they have a spouse and children (hence your grandchildren), does the spouse receive the estate if not otherwise specified? And even if you specify that your estate should pass to the grandchildren, wouldn't the spouse essentially have control of it anyway? Is the idea to appoint trustees, in the same way as we've already done for our children (who are well under 18)?

silvercar

I always think it hard for a spouse of a pre-deceased child. Not only do they lose their spouse relatively young and consequently their income, but any inheritance often passes directly to the grandchildren, leaving the spouse out of what would otherwise have been an inheritance that their deceased spouse would have inherited.

BooJewels

silvercar said:

I always think it hard for a spouse of a pre-deceased child. Not only do they lose their spouse relatively young and consequently their income, but any inheritance often passes directly to the grandchildren, leaving the spouse out of what would otherwise have been an inheritance that their deceased spouse would have inherited.

That's exactly the situation I ended up in when I lost my husband, who pre-deceased his Mum by only a few months.  She did actually re-make her will with somewhat indecent haste and re-directed her estate to her other, long-estranged son.  She did leave me a small bequest and some personal keepsakes, but it was a tiny fraction of what my husband would have inherited. She looked me straight in the eye and told me that obviously it would be done this way, as I wasn't family, I was her son's wife (it wasn't any great surprise to me and totally within expectations - I was more hurt/concerned that she cancelled her LPA and didn't make a new one). 

I actually would rather the grandchildren had inherited, as one had just had a baby, one was getting married and my son was saving the deposit to buy his own place.

BooJewels

WillowLeaf said:

BooJewels said:

That's exactly the situation I ended up in when I lost my husband, who pre-deceased his Mum by only a few months.  She did actually re-make her will with somewhat indecent haste and re-directed her estate to her other, long-estranged son.  She did leave me a small bequest and some personal keepsakes, but it was a tiny fraction of what my husband would have inherited. She looked me straight in the eye and told me that obviously it would be done this way, as I wasn't family, I was her son's wife (it wasn't any great surprise to me and totally within expectations - I was more hurt/concerned that she cancelled her LPA and didn't make a new one). 

I actually would rather the grandchildren had inherited, as one had just had a baby, one was getting married and my son was saving the deposit to buy his own place.

Odd that she would redirect to her long-estranged son rather than her grandchildren.

Some people use inheritance as a weapon, threatening people with disinheritance unless they do as they're told, acting like they're bequeathing the crown jewels.

They did patch things up towards the end and to his credit, the very low impression I had of him was overturned - he did come up trumps at the end of her life and handled everything far better than anyone could have foreseen.  He was very fair with me.

Her actions weren't actually malicious or weaponised, she just absolutely believed that blood was everything and trumped all else - especially her own offspring.  

Savvy_Sue

BooJewels said:

Her actions weren't actually malicious or weaponised, she just absolutely believed that blood was everything and trumped all else - especially her own offspring.  

Still seems odd to me, were her grandchildren somehow NOT her own blood? 

My own mother refused to allow inheritance to her grandchildren if any of us pre-deceased her, and insisted that Dad's will said the same. I could not understand it, but my co-executor and I were on the same page. They actually sent something to each nibling after Dad's death with a note to say they were sure Dad would have wanted them to have something, and since it wasn't in the will they'd do it from their own share (which they didn't need). And we had a plan in case any of us with children pre-deceased Mum, which fortunately wasn't necessary. 

BooJewels

Savvy_Sue said:

BooJewels said:

Her actions weren't actually malicious or weaponised, she just absolutely believed that blood was everything and trumped all else - especially her own offspring.  

Still seems odd to me, were her grandchildren somehow NOT her own blood? 

My own mother refused to allow inheritance to her grandchildren if any of us pre-deceased her, and insisted that Dad's will said the same. I could not understand it, but my co-executor and I were on the same page. They actually sent something to each nibling after Dad's death with a note to say they were sure Dad would have wanted them to have something, and since it wasn't in the will they'd do it from their own share (which they didn't need). And we had a plan in case any of us with children pre-deceased Mum, which fortunately wasn't necessary. 

The three Grandchildren (all in their 30s, all true blood relatives) each got a small cash gift a couple of years before she died and the same amount in her Will - that didn't change when my husband passed and she re-wrote it. She simply gave his share to her other son - so he simply got double.  I had been one of her executors originally, so she had told me that I would get an amount for undertaking that duty and that was what I got in her final Will, although no longer her Executor. 

My parents didn't mention their only Grandchild (my son) at all on paper, but we did have a conversation about my sister and I doing what we felt might be appropriate, depending on prevailing circumstances, when the time came.  They knew they could trust us to be decent about it and left it to our judgement - that worked well for us, but wouldn't perhaps be fair for suitable or others.  So he did okay - got a decent deposit for the house he now has.