If you don’t draw up a will, then who determines who acquires what? Things will not turn out the way you would have intended. To be sure your preferences are followed, you need to draw up a last will and testament.

Should you pass away without without leaving your will in trust it’s the courts that dictates how your assets is divided. The intestacy rules are applied and it will not be what you will have hoped or wanted.

If your legally married or have a civil partner but no children and your belongings is valued at a certain threshold or under then your partner will receive the total of the property including any life cover . If the assets is valued above this threshold and you have surviving relatives, your spouse would still get this figure, in addition to half of the surplus. There exists an order in which family will inherit, with surviving parents positioned at the start of the list, followed by brothers and sisters and so on.

Should you have a spouse and offspring then your partner would gain the predefined amount as above and half of the remainder. The offspring would receive half of the sum over the threshold right away and the other half on the death of your partner.

If you have offspring but no lawful spouse, then your children would share the inheritance. This could not be as you’d have wished. You could have a partner who depends on you and who you would have intended to inherit at least part of your belongings, who’d receive nothing.

To eschew all possible doubt about your estate, however basic it may seem, you should write a will. There are several ways to do this. You could build it yourself or hire a skilled will service or a solicitor.

Many people write their own will, generally using a template which you can acquire from stationers. Be wary if you proceed along this route – it’s very simple to make an error and you could even find it invalid. The cost of having a will drawn up, particularly a comparatively basic one, is not restrictive and you can be confident that your intentions will be realised.

A trained will agent or a solicitor will be experienced with processing all forms of questions and will be able to assist you. There could be enquiries regarding setting up trusts and maybe taxes.
Having written your last will and testament, it’s a good idea to reassess it from time to time, as your situation changes. If you decide to alter it, then it’s probably better to revoke your existing one and have it re-written. If the amendments are minimal, it may be easier to write a codicil to make a section of the will and to be used in association with it. Any codicil will have to be drawn up in the same method as the will in relevance signatures and witnesses.

Please be aware that any health cover will terminate on the death of the will holder and no value will be attributed to It in the will.