The first port of call for getting your wishes enacted after you’ve gone is your will. We’re going to talk about what you can do before you die in the next blog series, so we’ll deal with the latter half of the equation here – what happens when you’re gone.
A will is a fairly simple document for most of us. The format is much the same for everyone, with more or less detail depending on the complexity of your plans. First of all you declare all previous wills void – fairly straightforward, that.
Then you name your executors. These are the people responsible for executing your wishes, so choose wisely. Usually if you have a partner you would name them, but it’s best to choose at least one more executor. Crucially, the executors don’t actually have to do any executing. They can delegate the whole process to a solicitor, though they remain responsible and liable.
As a rule, unless you have literally no-one who can act as your executor, try to avoid appointing professional executors like solicitors and heaven-forbid, your bank. You’ll pay a lot more than is necessary simply because they become liable. These days many will charge a fixed fee, but some will still charge an hourly rate, which is a bit of a blank cheque, and worse, some will still charge a percentage of the estate.
After you’ve named your executors, most people use this space to mention their basic funeral wishes. This can be as detailed as you wish. You could just simply say that you want to be buried at sea. Or you could go into detail of the hymns/poems/pop songs you want to be part of the service/ritual/rave/party you intend to throw to see yourself off.
You could even designate the kind of quiche you want serving. Probably though, you’ll put that stuff in a separate document for your loved ones, rather than clutter the will with a detailed guest list.
Now we get to the important bit, starting with specific legacies. Strictly speaking the terminology is that specific legacies are where you leave items to people and pecuniary legacies are where you leave gifts of money. It doesn’t matter that much what the lingo says, but we’re talking about specific stuff here: ‘I want to leave X to Y’ type instructions.
Once they are dealt with, you move on to your residuary estate, which simply means everything that’s left. Often there are still definite instructions about property, even if it is only to say ‘sell my property at 29 Acacia Road and lump the proceeds with the rest of my assets.’
Usually then, the instructions are to the effect of saying ‘lump everything together, divide it equally between my three kids’. Or ‘Lump it all together, my wife gets it while she’s alive, but after she’s gone it goes to the kids.’ Or whatever. It’s generally fairly simple, because it’s what’s left. We’ve dealt with the specifics and then we’ve got what’s left.
And that’s generally it. Of course, within each of those sections on giving, there may be complications, like setting up a trust, in which case you’d lay out the scope of the trust across several paragraphs, usually. But the pattern is mostly the same, having been honed into that shape over centuries.
Now, I strongly urge you to get a will done professionally. These days it’s cheaper than ever to do so, and you don’t need to walk into a stuffy lawyer’s office to do it. You can still do that of course, and many solicitors will be happy to come and see you at home to take your instructions.
A will-writer will write a perfectly good will often at a lower cost than a full solicitor. And finally, these days there are some excellent online services, and first among those is Farewill. Check them out at farewill.com.
I interviewed the CEO, Dan Garrett, last year. There’s quite a lot they can do for you now and at an incredible cost. They’re now writing one in every ten wills in the UK, so they’re a force to be reckoned with, and as you’d expect, they have some formidable legal brains behind what they’re doing, so it’s by no means a low-rent option.
You even have the option to get your will done entirely online, so you put in your wishes and it gets looked at and drafted into a will and sent back to you. Or you can speak to a human if you want to. It’ll cost you a little bit more to do that, but not a lot more.
If you do go to Farewill, use the discount code meaningful20 to get 20% off at farewill.com. Please note, this isn’t an affiliate deal; I get nothing back if you go there, but you get 20% off, so make the most!
Get a will written – it’s just the basics. Even if it takes you time to plan through all this stuff, you can get a very simple will written very quickly, and it’s worth having that rather than nothing at all.
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