Making a new Will - thinking through options available.

[Manxman in exile]

I would always use a solicitor to draw up a will unless your wishes are relatively straightforward.  The biggest danger in a DIY will is that you do not take account of all the "what if scenarios".  What happens if you and your husband die years apart or what happens if you die together?  What happens if one or more of your beneficiaries die before you?  What if your chosen executor dies before you?  What if one of you dies and the other remarries?  (This happened in my family and led to an almighty bust-up.  It happens!) The list of "what ifs" is not endless, but the solicitor drawing up your will will go through them with you.

 

(To give a personal example, my wife is a solicitor and we have three law degrees between us and the Law of succession - ie wills - was one of my specialist subjects.  When we got married we thought we'd do our own wills.  We did, and we made a hopeless mess of it!  And we didn't have any children!  We ended up paying a solicitor to do it.)

 

You may only have one chance to get your will right.  Once you are dead you can't say " No...no...that's not what I meant!"  Shop around different solicitors for competitive quotes.  (I would guess you'd be looking at £200 to £500 tops depending where you live).

 

Whatever you do - do not appoint solicitors or any other professionals as executors!  If your son is reasonably intelligent he'll be able to cope and can get help from forums like this or Money Saving Expert or the .gov website.   And do not use a firm of will writers to write the will.

 

I'm sorry, but I'd also be wary of having any involvement with charities to write the will or be executors.  Leave a bequest if you must but think carefully what you are doing.  Charities can be a bit of a PITA when they are beneficiaries under a will.  If I wanted to leave anything to charity, I'd gift it during my life, not from my estate.

 

If your testamentary wishes are absolutely straightforward, then consider a DIY will, but think carefully as to whether it is worth it.  You mention "children" in your opening paragraph but then only mention a single son.  Is it a simple case of "everything to our son"?

 

You also mention self-isolation.  If you want a will done ASAP, remember you need two witnesses who are not beneficiaries (or spouses of beneficiaries) under the wills.  Can you do that if you are self-isolating?  I'm sure solicitors could (they provide their own witnesses).

 

PS - Remember you are talking about two wills.  Some people are under the mistaken impression that two people can make a single joint will.  You can't.  And you really do need a solicitor to explain what the surviving partner can do after the first of you dies.  It's not nice to think of but you do need to be aware of it and consider it.

[Manxman in exile]

Yes - they will be mirror wills.  The "problem" with mirror wills is that the surviving partner can revoke/change their will after the death of the first spouse.  Or if the surviving partner remarries, their will is automatically revoked by the marriage.  I'm sure if you are both in your 70s you believe this will never happen - but it could!  It happened in my family and the children of a first marriage ended up being disinherited in favour of step-children.  There are such things called mutual wills which get around this problem, but they almost always cause more problems than they solve and are very unusual these days.

 

This is the main reason why you need legal advice and ideally need a will drafted by a solicitor.  You need to ask the question:  "What if I die first and my husband marries someone else?"  I know it's a difficult question even to contemplate, but you do need legal advice about how to accomplish what you want.

 

In the meantime you have "a will".  If you are reasonably happy your son could act as executor you might want in the short term to remove the solicitors as executors.  How you do that I don't know.  Can you do it by a codicil?  Can you get something in writing from the solicitors whereby they agree to renounce the executorship?  Does it require a new will?  I don't know.  If no-one else here does, you could try asking local CAB or a different solicitor or try either of these:

 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/deaths-funerals-probate

 

https://google.info/forums/forum/legal-forums/wills-probate-and-bereavement

 

In the longer term you need to get a proper new will done.  I'd arrange it sooner rather than later.  (Not because your in danger of dying soon - just for peace of mind!  See a solicitor!

Edited March 15, 2020 by Manxman in exile

[Manxman in exile]

If you get no more useful info here, I'd try asking on the two links I gave above tomorrow.  Those are both boards which specialise in "will" type questions.  The second board has (or had) at least one contributor (name of peridot) who is a probate lawyer.  Unfortunately traffic is a bit slow on that board and you may have to wait a couple of days for responses.  You'll get more and quicker responses on the other one (Money Saving Expert) and contributors seem quite knowledgeable.  Ask how you should go about removing the solicitors as executors in the short term before doing a more thought out revision of your wills.

 

I'd speak to your new solicitors first for advice on how to proceed in your situation (including removing the other solicitors as executors on your current wills).  If you speak to the current solicitors first, they may not be so helpful - if you see what I mean!

 

I suppose if you were really desperate now, you could just copy the existing will and put your son as executor with daughter as a backup.  Problem is, if your existing will is quite old, it may not do what you want it to do because of changes in legislation etc.

 

So you do really need advice how to continue.  Good luck!

Edited March 16, 2020 by Manxman in exile

[Manxman in exile]

Follow the advice from your new solicitor is what I'd say.  If they say you can change the executor on current wills by a codicil then I presume they know what they are talking about.  If you decide you want to go down that short term route, double-check with them how you do it properly.

 

Mutual wills can cause much bigger problems than they solve.  The solicitor who drew up your current wills wanted it made clear they were NOT mutual wills.  That makes sense.

 

[With mutual wills the surviving partner cannot change their will after the first person dies.  Although that can be advantageous in some situations, in others it can be unfair and too restrictive and generally our legal system does not like the idea of mutual wills, and they are best avoided - except for very good reason, of which there are very few].

[Manxman in exile]

Easy for me to say but try not to worry about it.  Just try your best to sort it out.

 

I'm pretty sure you'll have nothing to worry about and it'll all be ok.

[Manxman in exile]

Good.  Glad you got it sorted to your satisfaction.