Why Making a Will isn’t a Once in a Lifetime Exercise

Why Making a Will isn’t a Once in a Lifetime Exercise 

If you’ve ever worked with a solicitor to make a Will, you’ll know that the process involves a great deal of thought.

The decisions you make during this process would have a huge impact on what would happen if you were to die unexpectedly. This would include:

• Who you would wish to take on the responsibility of winding up your estate.
• Who would take on the legal guardianship of any children.
• How you would wish your assets and belongings to be distributed.

Depending on your circumstances, these decisions may feel straight-forward, or they might feel much more challenging. Either way, we think it’s really important to keep in mind that the choices you make at the time of making your Will are unlikely to be the same choices you’d make throughout the rest of your life.

Most people make their first Will long before they expect to need it. Generally speaking, these are precautionary legal documents that we hope our loved ones will never have to rely on. In the best-case scenario, you might make a Will twenty, thirty or forty years before it’s needed.

The downside to this best-case scenario is that a large proportion of wills go out of date long before they’re used. After all, a legal document is unlikely to remain relevant decades after it was originally written. Because of this, we don’t believe that writing a Will should ever be considered a once in a lifetime task. In reality, we would recommend revisiting the Will you have in place at least every five years to ensure it still adequately reflects your circumstances and your wishes.

How might a Will go out of date?

The beauty of life is that it’s rarely static. Our circumstances, relationships and opinions can all change greatly from one year to the next, and all of these things can render a legal document such as a Will as out of date.

For example, getting married or entering a civil partnership automatically renders any Will you have previously written invalid (unless it was written in expectation of that particular union). Going through a divorce or dissolution will also have a significant impact on your existing Will. Other factors such as significant financial success, investing in assets overseas, adding to your family or experiencing estrangement can also render your existing Will insufficient.

Even if your circumstances and personal relationships haven’t changed greatly, the situation of the other people named in your Will may have done. Individuals you’ve named as executors, guardians or beneficiaries could die before you. Alternatively, their own circumstances may change in a way that would make it difficult for them to act on behalf of your Will. For example, ill health or an international move could make it difficult for someone to act on your behalf as an executor or guardian if they were called upon to do so.

If you don’t revisit your Will regularly and update it where necessary, this could have a significant impact on how well your wishes for your estate are able to be carried out after your death.

Is it not possible to future-proof a Will?

Writing a Will can be a big undertaking. Not only can the process take an emotional toll on you, it can also be expensive. We completely understand that you may not be keen to put yourself through this process regularly.

With this in mind, an experienced solicitor will absolutely take steps to future-proof your Will to some extent. They will use wording that will encompass any likely changes ahead. For example, instead of naming only your existing children or grandchildren as beneficiaries, they’ll likely include wording that will ensure any additional children/grandchildren that may come along would be included.

Your solicitor might also recommend appointing back up executors or guardians that could step in should your first choice individuals be unable to act on your behalf if and when the time comes.

Though it can be wise to take steps like these to future-proof your Will, there is a careful balance to be struck here. Though a good Will needs to be general enough to ensure it doesn’t go out of date within weeks or months or being written, it also needs to be specific enough to ensure that your wishes will be carried out exactly as you intended. In other words: the danger of making your Will general enough that it might survive any changes in circumstances is that the document becomes so general that it no longer really embodies your plans for your estate.

Life can change quickly, and none of us can ever really know what is ahead. Though it may be possible to write your Will in a way that would safeguard against certain future eventualities (such as the unexpected death of an executor or the birth of an additional child), trying to add specific caveats of this sort can quickly become unwieldy. It is impractical and ineffective to try and account for every eventuality in a Will. Realistically, no legal document can anticipate every possible scenario.

What does this mean for you?

With all the above in mind, we recommend reviewing your Will at least every five years. You may need to do this more regularly if you undergo any big life change such as a marriage, a separation or a change of financial circumstances.

Taking the time to review your Will and update it when necessary ensures that the right instructions will be in place if and when they are needed.

If you’d like to receive personalised advice on writing or reviewing a Will, we’re always on hand to help.