Codicil to will

danco

My will was drawn up by solicitors, as my needs were fairly complex. I don't have a family, so the residuary legatees were a number of my friends (quite a few of them).

The solicitors recently drew up a codicil to my will, of which the only non-technical clause was a number of changes to the residuary legatees.

I now want to make more changes to the residuary legatees. I am thinking of drawing up the codicil myself, simply using the wording in the current codicil but changing the list of residuary legatees as needed.

Is there any good reason not to do this? It would save their fees. Would the solicitors be annoyed by this, or might they object in any way? I would want the new codicil stored by them with the original will. Presumably I can just destroy the earlier codicil.

Keep_pedalling

For the sake of your executors, I would strongly advise against this, penny pinching on a will (especially for an estate in IHT terretory) is not worth the risks involved. I am almost certain that if you want to continue to store the will with your solicitor they are going to insist on reviewing any codicil you make and charge you for it.

How old is your will? How long ago did you make the codicil? Have you appointed professional executors?

danco

Will was 2024. Codicil a few months ago, but even so need to make changes now.

I would not be surprised if you are right that the solicitors would charge anyway.

No, the executors are friends, not professionals.

Keep_pedalling

It is quite unusual to want to make multiple changes so soon after making your will, is this likely to be the last change for the foreseeable future?

danco

Yes, I don't expect to make other changes. The first codicil added one good friend who is much newer in my life than the other friends who are legatees, and changed one legatee to her daughter (who is my god-daughter) as that seemed to make most sense, especially as the god-daughter had just got married..

The new planned codicil removes an old discretionary trust from the legatees as I realised that all the potential beneficiaries were also legatees under my will, and so it would only complicate things for the trustees of the trust. And one legatee died recently. The will covers that situation, so there is no actual necessity to delete her name. But if I am making the first change it seems tidier to make this change as well.

Yorkie1

Your reference to the involvement / existence of a trust does tend to support the suggestion that you should involve the professionals, just in case there are unknown unknowns which you would otherwise come up against.