Back to Basics - Why Make a Will?

Will Solicitors Newcastle and Sunderland

I have been writing about Wills, Probate and Lasting Powers of Attorney for so long that I realised the other day that I had not considered the absolute basics of Will Writing for quite some time. I know why you should make a will and so do our award-winning team at Emmersons. But the most important thing is to let you know, or to remind you, as to why you should make a will.

The most obvious reason is to make sure that the person who you would like to benefit from your estate does so. A very sad case cropped up recently. Two men had lived together as a couple for about twenty years. They were not married and neither of them had got round to making a will. One of them died suddenly and within days, as often happens in these instances, the family of the deceased turned up to the house, which was in the deceased’s name only, and advised that they wanted the house as part of the estate. As there was no will the next of kin are the family and not the long term partner of the deceased. So now he has to deal with the death of his partner and potential homelessness.

Is this what you would want for your partner?

Or what about a couple who start living together who have both been married before and have children from their previous marriages. I have seen numerous cases where the house is in one name only, even if both have contributed a lump sum. This often happens when one party has finalised their divorce settlement but the other has not.

Let’s take William and Meghan, I might as well stir it up a bit. William had already sorted out his divorce when he met Meghan. He had bought himself a three-bedroomed property. About a year after the two met Meghan moved in with William. She was very stressed and trying to sort out her divorce, but she and William were happy that they were moving forward together. Some time later Meghan received her own divorce settlement and as the couple were talking about getting married she put a large lump sum into the house. A friend told her to make sure that her name was on the deeds to the house.

When Meghan rang her solicitor to attend to this she was told it would cost about £250.00. She didn’t want to spend that money and neither did William. Why would he? He had the house in his name? Three years later William died. He had not left a will. So everything was to go to his children, and they said that as the house was in their father’s name they should inherit it as well. Could Meghan please find herself somewhere else to live?

If William and Meghan had made wills then they could have determined which of their assets were to go to each other and which to their children. At the very least, Meghan had to fight to recover her share of the property, and judges are not always kind on this point. How could she prove that this wasn’t just a gift to William, or that part of it wasn’t a loan she had repaid to him. That £250.00 would have been money well spent. Her court case would cost in the region of £10,000 to try to recover anything from William’s estate.

If Meghan could also prove that she had a financial dependency upon William then she could also make a claim for Provision For Dependants. Again she would be at the mercy of a judge. And, of course, not only was Meghan stressed about all of this but so were William’s children. They hated Meghan and couldn’t see why their father would even have considered leaving her anything instead of leaving everything to them. All of this angst and cost because William did not make a will.

You could also decide to leave part of your estate to someone who has been a good friend. If your next of kin happens to be your cousin who lives in Winchester, how long is it since you last saw him or her? Twenty years perhaps. If you don’t make a will they are going to inherit your estate, all of it. What will they do with your precious art collection, or your jewellery? They will probably sell it. If you want your friend or friends to receive items that are important to you then you should say so in your will.

A good friend of mine didn’t have a will. She didn’t want to leave her estate to her sister because once her sister died everything would end up with her sister’s husband’s family. Something that my friend was set against. I advised her that without a will that was exactly where her money would go. She said she would think about it. She died two weeks later without a will. I was asked to administer her estate by the dreaded family members. They were actually quite nice people but between them they couldn’t come up with anything to say by way of a eulogy. My friend’s sister wasn’t at the funeral as she was too ill. Of course she died a few months later and so, as predicted, the family members who my friend disliked intensely, inherited her estate.

I could provide you with dozens of examples from my cases over the years of the “wrong” people inheriting. But I assume you get the picture. Please think about your family carefully and don’t leave them in situations as described in this article. Extra stress, family disputes and expensive court proceedings are not a very pleasant legacy.

If you require any help relating to the above issues then I can be contacted at je@emmersons-solicitors.co.uk

Solicitors Newcastle:  0191 284 6989

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