Wards specialist solicitors - Will and wealth preservation

Will writing

It is estimated that a staggering 74% of the UK population does not have a current Will that reflects their personal and financial circumstances at the time of their death. Outlined below are the key reasons for having a Will. At Wards, we offer a fixed fee online Will-making service for straightforward Wills and a personal service, tailored to your needs, for more complex estates.

We can also advise you on how to plan for a potential future inability to manage your own affairs, including the preparation of Lasting Powers of Attorney and ‘Living Wills’ (the latter outlines your wishes in relation to future medical treatment).

For information on any of these services, either scroll through this page or click on the appropriate links to the left. For information on the procedures for sorting out a person’s financial affairs after their death, please click here.

For specialist advice in relation to Civil Partnerships, please click here.

Contact us
In the first instance, contact Jenny Pierce, who is head of our Tax and trusts team, and she will either help you herself, or put you in touch with a team member at an office local to you. E-mail Jenny or telephone her on 0117 929 2811.
Complete the online will questionnaire

Why have a Will?
A correctly drawn-up and regularly reviewed Will is an inexpensive way of avoiding difficulties for your relatives and friends after your death. It puts you in control of the final destination of your estate. There are a number of good reasons for having a Will:

1. Your Will can include your wishes regarding your funeral arrangements.

2. Your possessions may not go to the people you would like to benefit. Without a Will, the law applies ‘Rules of Intestacy’, which outline who will benefit from your estate. This is unlikely to match your wishes.

3. Your spouse, civil partner and family could be forced to sell their home to pay other beneficiaries or the Inland Revenue.

4. If you are not married, or in a registered civil partnership, your long term partner will get nothing from your estate. The Rules of Intestacy do not recognise a "common law" husband or wife or other partner.

5. If you have married or entered civil partnership since making a Will, in most cases your old Will is automatically revoked.

6. If you are going through a divorce and made a Will whilst married or in civil partnership, you need to review the position. The Will made will still be valid until the divorce proceedings are completed. Separation without divorce has no effect on the Will.

7. If you are divorced with young children and your ex-spouse or civil partner cares for them, they may be able to take control of your money on behalf of the children, even though they will not inherit it themselves.

8. You may leave problems for children under 18 years old, for example, regarding who looks after them and their money. In a Will, you can appoint guardians and Trustees to take care of this. If no provision is made, then the children would be placed in the care of social services.

9. If you have no family, your estate may revert to the Crown.

10. Your estate may be left in the hands of those who are incapable or unwilling to sort it out, whereas using a Will, you can appoint responsible people as your executors.

11. You should update your Will regularly (we recommend every 5 years), particularly if you have children born after the date of your last Will or there are changes in your financial situation.

12. You can easily transfer Wills from other solicitors to Wards and we will hold the Will for you. There is no charge for this service. We reserve the right to charge a fee if your Will is removed but this is currently a minimum fee of £20 to cover our administrative time

Online Wills
We have legally qualified staff who have been drafting Wills for many years and are assisted by the latest technology. This means that we can prepare straightforward Wills quickly and at a minimum cost to you.

Wards offers an online Will service for straightforward Wills. The cost of the online Will service is £110 plus VAT for a single Will and £180 plus VAT for two similar Wills.

All you need to do is simply complete the form (click here) and submit it to us. We will draft a Will and send it to you for approval. Once you have agreed the draft, we produce the Will for signing and witnessing. You can come into any of our offices and have the Will signed and witnessed at no extra cost to you. We would recommend that you do this.

However, if this is difficult, we will send you detailed instructions of how to have your Will signed and witnessed. We do not accept responsibility where supervision of the execution of the Will does not take place. But we do thoroughly examine all Wills to ensure, as far as we are able, that they have been properly executed.

If any unusual circumstances come to our attention when we receive your online form, we may recommend our personal Will service to you.

Do I need a personal Will service?
We recommend the personal Will service is used if your Will is not straightforward. The following factors are among those which should be considered:

The personal Will service involves us meeting to discuss your circumstances and how best to tailor your Will to suit your needs. Meetings can be arranged at any of our offices and, if necessary, at your home. Meetings outside office hours can also be arranged.

Charges for the personal Will Service vary, depending upon the amount of time spent on the matter. Once we know your circumstances, we can give you an estimate of the anticipated final bill. The fees (including an initial meeting) start from £150 plus VAT for a single Will and £250 plus VAT for two similar Wills. If you are unsure whether or not you should be using the personal Will service, please contact us to discuss matters further.

Who should I choose as my executors?
The executors are responsible for carrying out the wishes expressed in your Will after your death. They will collect in your assets, pay any liabilities and then distribute your estate.

You may appoint as many executors as you wish and they can also be a beneficiary under the terms of your Will. It is administratively straightforward to appoint two and no more than four. Spouses often name each other as sole executor, with a further appointment upon the second death.

The executors should ideally be younger than you and willing and able to act. Please ask the people you appoint whether they are willing to do so. We have an information sheet about the role of executors, which we would be happy to send to your chosen executors, once your Will has been completed.

You may prefer to name professional executors for a variety of reasons including:

Wards are happy to act as executor to your Will, either solely, or with other named executors. We are also able to be named as a substitute executor, if your first choice is unable to act. The only disadvantage to your estate of doing so is that a professional executor costs money. Our costs are charged on a time spent basis, together with a fee based upon a small percentage of the value of the gross estate.

Lasting Powers Of Attorney
A Lasting Power of Attorney is a document by which you appoint someone to act on your behalf in case, in the future, you are unable to manage your own financial affairs. The person you choose to act on your behalf is also able to make health, welfare and end of life decisions too.

A Lasting Power of Attorney is advisable whatever your age or circumstances. It differs from an ordinary Power of Attorney, in that it continues to operate even if you become mentally incapable of managing your own property and affairs. An ordinary Power of Attorney would lapse at this point, just when it is most vital.

There are advantages in making a Lasting Power of Attorney, including:

The alternative to making a Lasting Power of Attorney is for a person known as a Receiver to be appointed through an application to the Public Trust Office, which is a division of the Court. The Court charges a fee, dependent on the value of your estate. This is an expensive and time consuming exercise which can be avoided by entering into a Lasting Power of Attorney.

A Lasting Power of Attorney can be made at any time if you are over 18 years of age and have full mental capacity. A physical disability does not stop a person making one. It can be revoked at any time, as long as you still have full mental capacity. It becomes effective as soon as it is registered but, in practice, it is only normally used if incapacity sets in.

Your Attorney must register the Lasting Power of Attorney at the Court of Protection if he has reason to believe you are becoming mentally incapable. There is a one-off Court fee payable, which is cheaper than having to follow the Deputyship route.

Living Wills
We often receive enquiries about Living Wills, which are also referred to as Advanced Directives. The purpose of a Living Will is to make your wishes clear about your own medical care, should you for any reason be unable to communicate them in the future.

A Living Will is not about taking an active step to hasten one's death (euthanasia is illegal in this country) but it expresses a desire for life not to be prolonged unnecessarily. The medical profession has a duty to provide basic care, which includes oral nutrition and hydration.

You should discuss it with your GP and have it noted on your medical records. If you do make a Living Will, the fact that you have had this discussion will show that you were fully aware of the decisions that you took, should a dispute arise about your true wishes later.

You can always change the wishes stated in your Living Will and it is sensible to review it regularly, as you would a traditional Will. If you do alter the Living Will, you should destroy it and all copies of it.

Living Wills have been recognised by the Courts in this country for several years. But they require very careful drafting and we would recommend you take full professional advice, to ensure the document's validity.

A Living Will is only concerned with the medical treatment that you wish to receive while you are unable to communicate. It is not concerned with the disposal of your property after your death and you should also still have a traditional Will and, ideally, a Lasting Power of Attorney.

Since 1 October 2007 you can now make a Welfare Lasting Power of Attorney. This can appoint a person to act as your healthcare proxy. It can cover end of life decisions.

Wealth preservation
Making a Will is usually the first step to take in structuring your affairs in order to minimise your liability for Inheritance Tax. We provide wealth preservation advice tailored to your particular circumstances, to help you minimise tax liabilities and maximise tax relief. Click here for our Trust and estate planning services.