The IT Trader

If you fail to make a will, then who decides who gets what? Things will not proceed how you would have preferred. To be sure your wishes are fulfilled, you should to construct a will.

Should you die without writing a will it’s the courts that decides how your assets is distributed. The intestacy guidelines will be applied and it could not be what you will have hoped or wanted.

If your legally married or have a civil partner but no offspring and your estate is worth a specific threshold or under then your spouse will get the entirety of the assets including any life assurance . If the estate is worth at more than this figure and you have existing family, your partner would still get this amount, in addition to 50% of the surplus. There exists an order in which relatives will inherit, with existing parents being at the head of the list, followed by brothers and sisters and so on.

If you have a civil partner and offspring then your partner would gain the set amount as above and 50% of the surplus. The descendants would receive 50% of the total over the excess immediately and the remaining 50% on the death of your spouse.

If you have offspring but no lawful partner, then your children would share the estate. This may not be at all what you’d have expected. You could have a companion who depends on you and who you would have wished to obtain at least part of your estate, who’d receive nothing.

To eschew all potential anxiety about your estate, regardless of how basic it may appear, you should write a last will and testament. There are various ways to do this. You could make it yourself or hire a professional will writer or a solicitor.

Many people construct their own will, generally using a form which can acquire from stationers. Caution is advised if you proceed along this path – it’s very simple to make a mistake and you could potentially find it void. The expense of having a will written, particularly a somewhat simple one, is not excessive and you can be definite that your intentions will be fulfilled.

A professional will writer or a solicitor will be used to dealing with all forms of enquiries and will be able to aid you. You might have queries to do with starting trusts and maybe taxes.
Having constructed your last will and testament, it’s a sensible decision to review it from time to time, as your situation changes. If you resolve to change it, then it is sensible to revoke your existing one and have it remade. If the alterations are small, it might be simpler to construct a codicil to make a section of the last will and testament and to be read in conjunction with it. Any codicil will have to be constructed in the same way as the will in regards to 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.