If you don’t make a will, then who determines who acquires what? It wont proceed how you would have liked. To be sure your wishes are followed, you need to build a will.
If you pass away without without writing your last will and testament it’s the state that decides how your property is distributed. The intestacy guidelines are used and it will not be what you will have expected or wanted.
If you are currently married or have a civil partner but are without offspring and your assets is valued at a specific threshold or under then your spouse will receive the whole of the property including any life assurance . If the property is valued greater than this figure and you have existing relatives, your partner would still receive this figure, plus 50% of the remainder. There is an order in which family would inherit, with existing parents being at the top of the list, followed by brothers and sisters and so on.
Should you have a lawful partner and offspring then your partner would receive the set amount as above and half of the remainder. The descendants would inherit 50% of the total over the threshold immediately and the other half on the death of your partner.
Should you have offspring but no legal spouse, then your children would divide the inheritance. This may not be what you would have wanted. You could have a partner who depends on you and who you will have intended to receive at least share of your belongings, who would receive nothing.
To avoid all possible anxiety about your estate, however basic it may seem, you should write a last will and testament. There are several options for this. You may construct it yourself or use a skilled will agent or a solicitor.
Often people draw up their own will, commonly using a template which can acquire from the post office. Caution is advised should you go down this route – it’s deceptively easy to make a mistake and you could potentially make it void. The cost of having a will made, particularly a relatively straightforward one, is not prohibitive and you can be assured that your wishes will be fulfilled.
A professional will service or a solicitor will be experienced with processing all types of enquiries and will be able to assist you. You might have questions about setting up trust funds and perhaps inheritance tax.
Having made your last will and testament, it’s a sensible decision to inspect it from time to time, as your situation changes. If you decide to amend it, then it is sensible to revoke your existing one and have it re-written. If the changes are minimal, it might be more straight forward to construct a codicil to make a part of the last will and testament and to be read in conjunction with it. Any codicil will have to be constructed in the same method as the will in relevance signatures and witnesses.
Please be aware that any health insurance will terminate on the death of the will holder and no value will be attributed to It in the will.