Registered number: 10816512.
Registered office: Squiggle Consult Ltd, Suite 2069, Letraset Building, Wotton Road, Ashford, Kent, TN23 6LN
Squiggle Consult Ltd. is a limited company registered in England and Wales.
A Will is not really a document. It is a set of decisions, about people, timing and protection, that happen to be recorded in a document. Most of the problems families face after a death trace back not to a badly typed Will, but to decisions that were never properly thought through: the wrong executor, a child inheriting too young, a new partner accidentally disinheriting the children, an exclusion handled carelessly.
This factsheet walks you through the decisions to consider before your Will is written. If you have no Will at all, read our Intestacy: Who Inherits Without a Will factsheet first; it explains what the law decides for you if you never get around to it.
If you have decided to go ahead and want to arrive at your meeting prepared, our Starting Your Legacy Planning factsheet sets out the checklist and what to bring with you.
Your executors are the people legally responsible for carrying out your Will, gathering in your assets, paying your debts and taxes, and distributing what remains to your beneficiaries. It is a demanding role with real personal liability attached, so choose people who are organised, trustworthy and likely to outlive you. Most Wills name two executors, with a substitute in case one cannot act.
An executor can be a beneficiary too, adult children are a common choice, but consider the dynamics: two siblings who do not get along, forced to agree on every decision, is a recipe for delay and resentment. Where the estate is complex or relationships are fragile, a professional executor can spare everyone. Our Being an Executor and Professional Executors factsheets explain the role and alternatives in detail.
If you have children under 18, your Will is the only place you can formally record who you would like to raise them if both parents die. Without that nomination, the decision may fall to the courts. Talk to the people you have in mind before naming them, guardianship is a life-changing commitment. A well-drafted Will can also give your trustees power to support the guardians financially while they raise your children.
The heart of the Will has three parts that people often collapse into one.
Who. Which people (and perhaps charities) do you want to benefit? Think beyond the obvious: step-children are not automatically included unless you name them; an unmarried partner has no automatic rights at all; godchildren, friends and carers receive nothing unless you say so.
When. Outright inheritance at 18 is the default if you say nothing more, and 18 is young to receive a significant sum. You can delay inheritance to 21, 25 or another age, with trustees able to release money earlier for education, housing or genuine need.
How. Outright, or protected? An outright gift is simple, but it is exposed to a beneficiary's divorce, bankruptcy or vulnerability. A gift held in trust (an arrangement where people you choose, called trustees, hold assets for someone's benefit) can offer real protection. More on this below.
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A Will usually contains two kinds of gift. Specific gifts (sometimes called legacies) are individual items or fixed sums: a ring to a granddaughter, £5,000 to a charity. The residue is everything that remains after debts, taxes, expenses and specific gifts, and it is where the bulk of most estates sits.
Two practical points. First, be careful with fixed cash sums: if your estate shrinks, a long list of cash legacies can swallow the residue and leave your main beneficiaries with far less than you intended. Second, always say what happens if a beneficiary dies before you, does their gift pass to their children, or fall back into the residue?
You do not need to be wealthy to benefit from a Will trust. Common protective uses:
Trusts also create obligations for your trustees, including registration with HMRC in many cases, see our Trust Administration factsheet. They are powerful, but need to be recommended for the right reasons and drafted properly.
A letter of wishes is an informal, confidential document that sits alongside your Will. It is not legally binding, but it guides your executors and trustees: how you would like a discretionary trust exercised, why you made certain decisions, funeral preferences, who should receive particular personal items. Because it is not part of the Will, you can update it at any time without formality.
You are free, in England and Wales, to leave your estate to whomever you choose, but that freedom is not absolute in effect. The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 lets certain people apply to the court for reasonable financial provision if your Will leaves them little or nothing. That includes spouses and former spouses, children (adult children too), cohabiting partners, and anyone you were financially maintaining.
A claim must normally be brought within six months of the grant of representation (the court document confirming who may deal with the estate). The court can allow a late claim, but nobody should count on it.
If you intend to exclude someone who could claim, do not simply stay silent. A carefully worded Will, supported by a letter of wishes explaining your reasoning, will not prevent a claim but can significantly strengthen your estate's position in defending one. This is exactly where professional guidance earns its keep.
A Will is a snapshot. Review it after every major life event: marriage, divorce, a new child or grandchild, a death in the family, buying property, a significant change in wealth.
Two rules catch people out constantly. Marriage or civil partnership automatically revokes an existing Will in England and Wales, unless the Will was made expressly in contemplation of that marriage, so newlyweds with old Wills are often, without realising it, intestate. Divorce does not revoke a Will, but treats your former spouse as having died before you for the purposes of the Will, which can leave gaps. As a rule of thumb, read your Will every three years and ask: does this still describe my life?
A Will must satisfy strict formalities to be valid (section 9 of the Wills Act 1837). It must be in writing and signed by you, or by someone else in your presence and at your direction. It must appear that you intended your signature to give effect to the Will. Your signature must be made or acknowledged in front of two or more witnesses who are present at the same time. And each of those witnesses must then sign, or acknowledge their signature, in your presence. The law does not require your witnesses to be independent, but in practice they must be: under section 15, if a witness, or that witness's spouse or civil partner, is left anything in the Will, the Will stays valid but the gift to them fails completely. Homemade Wills fail on exactly these points with depressing regularity: a witness missing, a witness who benefits, amendments scribbled on later with no formality.
Even when a DIY Will is technically valid, ambiguity is the bigger danger. "I leave my money to my children", does "money" include investments? The house proceeds? Which children, in a blended family? Vague words in homemade Wills are a leading cause of estate disputes, and the people who pay the price are the ones you were trying to protect. Professional drafting also covers what a kit never asks about: trusts, exclusions, Inheritance Tax planning (see our Inheritance Tax Mitigation factsheet), business interests and foreign assets.
Imagine Priya, divorced with children aged 12 and 15, and a new partner, Sam, whom she has no plans to marry. Without a Will, intestacy would give everything to her children at 18, and nothing to Sam, who lives in her house. Priya's Will names her sister and a professional as executors, nominates her sister as guardian, gives Sam a right to remain in the house for five years under a trust, holds the children's inheritance until 25, and leaves a letter of wishes explaining it all. One document, and the main risks in her situation are dealt with. Priya still needs to check her pension nomination and how her home is owned, because neither passes under her Will. This is a hypothetical example for illustration only.
Treating the Will as a form-filling exercise. The document is the easy part. The decisions are where the value lies: executors, guardians, timing, protection.
Leaving everything outright to a surviving partner in a blended family. The survivor's new Will, or remarriage, can disinherit your children entirely. A life interest trust solves this.
Forgetting that marriage revokes a Will. If you have married since your Will was made, you almost certainly need a new one.
Excluding someone without addressing the claim risk. Silence invites a 1975 Act claim. Take advice and document your reasoning.
Using a DIY kit. Invalid witnessing and ambiguous wording are the two most common ways homemade Wills fail, and nobody discovers the problem until it is too late to fix.
Never reviewing it. A perfect Will from 2012 may be a dangerous Will in 2026.
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This factsheet is general information for England and Wales, not legal, tax or financial advice. Last reviewed: August 2026.
Registered number: 10816512.
Registered office: Squiggle Consult Ltd, Suite 2069, Letraset Building, Wotton Road, Ashford, Kent, TN23 6LN
Squiggle Consult Ltd. is a limited company registered in England and Wales.
