If you don’t construct a last will and testament, then who decides who acquires what? Things wont go the way you would have chosen. To be certain your desires are fulfilled, you need to make a will.
Should you pass away without without making a free will it’s the state that dictates how your property is divided. The intestacy rules are applied and it will not be how you’d have hoped or wished.
If you are legally married or have a civil partner but are without children and your belongings is worth a certain amount or under then your partner will receive the whole of the property including any life insurance . If the estate is valued greater than this figure and you have surviving family, your partner will still get this figure, plus 50% of the excess. There is an priority in which relatives would inherit, with surviving parents situated at the start of the list, followed by siblings and so on.
Should you have a spouse and children then your partner will gain the set amount as above and 50% of the excess. The children would receive 50% of the amount over the set amount right away and the other 50% on the death of your spouse.
If you have offspring but no legal partner, then your offspring would share the estate. This may not be what you’d have hoped. You could have a companion who depends on you and who you would have wished to inherit at least part of your assets, who’d receive nothing.
To remove all possible worry about your property, regardless of how straightforward it may appear, you should construct a will. There are many options for this. You may write it yourself or hire a skilled will writer or a solicitor.
Many people make their own last will and testament, commonly using a template which can obtain from the post office. Take care if you proceed down this route – it’s surprisingly simple to make a mistake and you could even make it invalid. The cost of having a will written, particularly a comparatively basic one, is not excessive and you can be sure that your desires will be fulfilled.
A skilled will agent or a solicitor will be used to processing all types of questions and will be able to aid you. You might have questions regarding starting trusts and maybe inheritance tax.
Now you’ve written your last will and testament, it’s a wise idea to reassess it on occasion, as circumstances change. If you resolve to change it, then it is a smart move to revoke your earlier one and have it redone. If the amendments are minor, it might be more straight forward to construct a codicil to make a section of the will and to be read in partnership with it. Any codicil will have to be made in the same method as the will in regards to signatures and witnesses.
Please be aware that any health insurance cover will terminate on the death of the will holder and no value will be attributed to It in the will.