WILL WRITING SERVICE

The Will Writing Service was setup to help you get your Will written more easily. 

At the Will  Writing Service, we believe that writing your Will is one of the most important tasks you should undertake.  Yet 7 out of 10 people across the UK do not have a Will or an up to date will.

The Will Writing Service website will take you through step by step, the things you might need to consider to get your Will planned and written.

We have tried to use plain English and explain any technical terms as they may arise.

Where possible we will give you guidance and recommend other partners and websites that we have found to be helpful.

Pre-Planning Your Will

One of the first and key things you need to do when contemplating writing your Will is to understand and write down what you want to achieve by creating your Will.

By this we do not mean try and write your Will, just think about what your overall aims and objectives are

Typically this might be, to look after my wife or partner, then when they have gone to pass anything left on to my children. 

 It is your Will, so you need to decide exactly what you want to happen after you have gone.

You might also like to think about Inheritance Tax. Some people do not mind leaving a large bill that needs to be settled before their estate can be distrusted. On the other hand some people will want to bend over backwards to make sure as much of their money and assets goes to their loved ones as possible.

Again this decision is yours, other consideration might include whether you want to try and protect any assets from potential long term care costs, if you should need to go into care.  This is an area many people are interested in. It is also and area where Politicians are going to solve the problems quickly or easily, so planning for this outcome has become more and more essential..

Some may want to leave money to children or to other parties, but because of circumstances, such as pending divorce, alcohol or drugs problems or some other factor they cannot trust the person not to loose or squander the legacy they are being left. If this is the case make a note of these circumstances.

Aalso think about if you want to deliberating exclude some one who is dependant on you or might be able to make a claim on your estate.  It is better to include this information in your Will than to omit it and leave it to hope.

When you have given thought to want you want to achieve it is time to move on to the next stage, thinking about what assets you have.

Auditing Your Assets & Liabilities

First of all start by creating a long list of the major valuable things you own this list might include :-

• Your House

• Other property here or abroad

• Bank & Building Society Savings

• Business Assets

• Stocks, Shares and Bonds

• Cars, boats and other expensive items

• Jewellery and works of art

• Life Insurance Policies

• Pension Policies

• Death in service benefit from an employer or previous pension scheme

• Cash and other savings

• Any other major asset you own, outright or with some body else.

Once you have created this list it is worth noting a notional value against each item, this does not have to be precise, but as good a guess as you can make.

Next make another list of any outstanding debts or liabilities you may have, this might include:-

• Mortgages

• Credit card debts

• Outstanding loans

• Any other liability you have in this country or abroad.

Once you have created this list again assign a value to each of these items.

Establishing Your Estates Net Worth

By taking the total of the value of all of your assets and subtracting the total of all of your liabilities you arrive at a rough figure.  This rough figure represents your estates net worth  and is used in inheritance calculations and probate calculations.

The Final Planning Stage

The final stage of the planning process before you contact a Will Writing Service or write your own Will is to decide who gets what assets or what proportion of your estate.

You might want to leave a particular assets to a named person or you might like to leave a particular amount of money to a named person or group of people.

As examples you may decide

• I leave my house to my wife Mrs J Smith

• I leave my car to Bob Smith

• I leave 20% of the value of my estate to be shared equally between my children

• I leave the sum of £50,000 to be shared equally between my children

• I leave £20,000 to my son Fred Smith

When you have completing deciding who should be given what, make a note of each gift, together with the name address and telephone number of the person you are giving the gift to.

You are almost ready to actually start and contact a Will Writing Service, there are two things left to consider, if you have children under the age of 16 you might want to consider who you would like to be their guardians if you were dead.  Again make a note of this together with there name address and telephone number.

The final thing to consider is who you would like to sort out your affairs after you have gone.

This will be the person or preferably the persons you would like to act as your Executors.

For more details of the role of executors please see our role of the Executors page.

You are now well prepared and it is time to make the decision on whether you are going to use a Will Writing Service, a Solicitor, DIY Will Kit or get your bank to produce your will for you.

Please see our options on getting your will written page