Wills

As we journey through life, our circumstances and feelings often change. If you have a Will, it makes sense to review it at regular intervals to ensure it still properly reflects your wishes. Experts usually recommend that you do this every two to five years.

The term ‘living Will’ is sometimes used to refer to legal documents called advance decisions and advance statements. These legal documents allow you to set out your preferences for medical or life-sustaining treatment in the future. These documents are particularly helpful if you want to be confident that your wishes would be known in the event that you were unable to communicate them to medical professionals.

Circumstances where a living will might be necessary include:

● If you were diagnosed with a condition such as dementia.
● If you were unconscious following an accident or medical emergency.

If you’re concerned about how to make sure your medical wishes are known in the future, we can advise you on how best to do this.

As we journey through life, our circumstances and feelings often change. If you have a Will, it makes sense to review it at regular intervals to ensure it still properly reflects your wishes. Experts usually recommend that you do this every two to five years.

It may be particularly important to review your Will if:

● Your marital status has changed.
● You have welcomed new children or step-children into your family.
● Your financial circumstances have changed.
● Your relationship with any of your executors or beneficiaries has changed.
● The circumstances of any of your executors or beneficiaries have changed.
● You want to make sure your Will is written with inheritance tax or care home fees in mind.

Our Will reviews are very comprehensive.

● Send a copy of your Will to us (we’ll usually request this via email).
● We will review your Will.
● We’ll make comments and suggestions.

We will confirm a fixed fee for your Will review once we have seen a copy of it. If we find that changes are necessary, we’ll let you know along with our recommendations.

You don’t have to have made the Will with us originally in order for us to review it for you. However, we’re only able to review professional drafted wills. This means we cannot accept homemade Wills or Wills made using a Will pack from a stationer.

We strive to make our services accessible to everyone. If you are visually impaired, we are able to produce wills and related legal information in Braille, large print, audio and easy-read formats.

Legal documents contain personal information and we take your privacy very seriously. We produce all alternative formats via the ISO approved secure production unit of the Royal National Institute for the Blind.

In some circumstances, it may be possible to add a ‘codicil’ to an existing Will. A codicil is a document that exists to amend a Will rather than replacing it with a new Will. However, in practice a codicil can often complicate matters. We will be able to advise you on whether it would be best to write a codicil or to produce and sign a new version of your Will.

Before we can work with you to write a Will, we will need to see proof of your identity. You can see a full list of the documents we will need to see.

To write your Will, you will need the full names and addresses of the people you would like to name as executors, guardians or beneficiaries. You will also need a list of any specific assets you would like to bequeath, as well as a good understanding of the extent of your estate.

During the process of writing a Will, you can choose to either meet with us in person or over video call.

Once we have prepared your documents and you are ready to sign them, you will need to sign the original copy in the presence of two witnesses. You can either visit us in the office to do this, or we can post the original copy to your home address. If you sign in the office, we will act as your witnesses. If you sign your Will yourself at home, you will need to arrange for two witnesses to be in attendance while you do this.

An executor is an individual you appoint to administer your Will. They will need to manage the entire process of assessing your estate, paying any creditors, collecting in any debts you are owed, applying for probate and distributing your estate as per your Will.

If you don’t leave a Will, a close family member will need to apply for a Grant of Representation to be named your administrator in order to carry out this role.

If you don’t feel that any of your close family members would be suitable for this role, you can consider other options. You might feel that a friend would be a better fit, though you would need to ensure they were willing to take on this responsibility. Alternatively, you might decide to appoint a professional executor, such as your solicitor.

A Will can include instructions for caring for a pet, though it is not possible to leave money directly to an animal.

A significant change in your circumstances such as a marriage or divorce will affect the validity of any Will you have previously made. If you marry or enter a civil partnership after the date a Will is made, that Will automatically becomes invalid (unless the Will was specifically worded to accommodate the upcoming marriage). If you get divorced, or dissolve a civil partnership, your Will will still be valid, but your former spouse or civil partner will no longer be entitled to act as your executor or inherit from your estate.

We recommend that the original copy of your Will is held professionally. All wills made at Roche Legal include storage, free of charge.

It is not legally necessary to register a Will, though it is good practice to make sure your Will is registered with Certainty. Certainty is the UK’s national Will register and records where original wills are stored. Registering your Will with Certainty would mean that your relatives would quickly be able to get in touch with the solicitor who is storing your Will if they needed to.

If you are a business owner, it may be wise to take extra precautions when writing your Will in regards to your business interests. An experienced solicitor will be able to advise you on how best to do this.

If you have a connection with a foreign jurisdiction, perhaps because you have assets there or are a foreign national, then it’s really important to take specialist advice.

In some cases, we can prepare a Will for you that covers your worldwide assets. In other cases, we may recommend that you make a Will here and a Will in the other jurisdiction.