Top Five Mistakes People Make with their Wills

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Writing a Will is one of the most important pieces of life admin you will ever complete. This is because these vital documents can make all the difference at a traumatic time. If you were to die unexpectedly, having a comprehensive, up-to-date Will in place would ensure you were able to provide for the people that are left behind in exactly the way you would have intended.

Unfortunately, not all wills are created equal. There are plenty of common will errors that we see over and over again in our role as probate solicitors. Some of these mistakes can have a huge impact on the period after a death. In some cases, mistakes like these can lead to family members being unintentionally disinherited or having to go through stressful legal proceedings.

If you haven’t yet written a Will – or if you have but need to update it – you might like to take a look at our Will writing service and our detailed guide to writing a will. We’d also advise reading below to learn about five of the most frequent Will writing mistakes that are made in the UK.

Together, we can work to avoid them.

1. Not using a professional and experienced Will writer

 We do understand that cost can be a significant factor when it comes to making legal plans for the future. However, the reality is that DIY wills or wills written by someone other than a specialist can end up costing a great deal more in the long run.

Writing a Will involves a lot of thought and careful planning on behalf of the professional who is writing it. The language needs to strike an ideal balance between not being vague but also not so specific that the Will becomes outdated almost immediately.

A specialist solicitor, like Roche Legal, will be best placed to write a Will that will fully reflect your circumstances and wishes for the future, all while avoiding any common mistakes.

2. Failing to keep your Will up to date

No matter how well-written a Will is, if it is not updated in line with any changes of circumstances it may become fully or partially invalid.

Many of the milestones we reach in life will have a big impact on our future plans. For example, getting married, buying property, having children, starting a business and getting divorced are all factors that could affect any Will you might have previously written.

Some of these life changes will have a more significant effect on your Will than others. For example, if you get married, it will automatically invalidate any Will you have previously written (unless the Will was written specifically in advance of the marriage). Divorce also has an impact on your Will. After a divorce or dissolution of a civil partnership, any mention of your former spouse in a Will you made before the split will no longer be considered valid. (For example, they will no longer be able to inherit or act as your executor). However, this rule only comes into effect once the divorce or dissolution is finalised: your ex would still be able to benefit from your Will or act as an executor if you were separated or part way through divorce/dissolution proceedings.

With this in mind, it’s vital to ensure you check and update your Will regularly, especially in line with any big life changes.

3. Not making specific provision for children

There are multiple ways in which individuals can fail to make specific provision for their children in their Will. The most obvious way is to fail to appoint a suitable guardian for any minor children. However, there are other very significant mistakes that can be made in this area. For example, some people don’t realise that step-children need to be specifically mentioned in a Will in order to be able to benefit from it. Legally speaking, the term ‘children’ refers only to biological or formally adopted children, not step-children, regardless of the strength of the relationship you might have with them.

There is another big issue that can occur when a couple makes mirror wills. Mirror wills is a term that refers to instances when a couple makes a set of wills together that are more or less identical to each other, with each leaving everything to the other partner. When a couple makes wills of this kind, they are trusting that the surviving partner will then go on to provide for the children they share when they die. However, this scenario doesn’t allow for the fact that there may be a big gap between the deaths, and that the surviving partner may move on to a new relationship.

In some situations like this, the surviving partner may go on to have additional children with their new partner. When they die, it may be the case that the children from their first partnership are disinherited. This can sometimes happen unintentionally. For example, if there is no valid Will at the time of the surviving parent’s death, the intestacy laws may mean that their estate would pass to their new spouse, not their children.

An experienced solicitor will be able to help you mitigate against the chance of something like this happening, often with the use of life interest trusts.

4. Not witnessing the Will correctly

Many of the most common will errors relate to administrative matters around making a will, such as how the Will is witnessed. There are strict rules about how to witness a Will, and these need to be followed carefully in order to ensure that Will is valid.

It’s particularly important to think carefully about who you ask to witness your Will. Not only do they need to be over eighteen and in sound mind themselves, they also need to be impartial. It’s important to understand that if someone signs a Will to witness it, they will no longer be entitled to inherit anything from that Will. This means that your spouse, children or other family members should not witness your Will. It’s also advisable not to ask anyone you have appointed as an executor, guardian or trustee to witness your Will.

5. Not appointing a suitable executor

As a legal document, a Will has various purposes. It is designed to set out your wishes for your estate in the event of your death, but it is also designed to appoint the person – or people – you wish to task with carrying out those wishes. Not appointing an executor at all would be a major error, but so is appointing someone who would be unsuitable for the job.

The executor of a Will is by no means a ceremonial role. There can be a great deal of work involved in winding up an estate, and you should think carefully about who you would trust to do this on your behalf. We would not recommend appointing anyone just because you think they would expect to be asked. Rather, it’s important to carefully consider who among those closest to you would be best suited to the task, and who you would trust to carry out your wishes just as you intended them. If there is no one suitable you feel you could ask, you could consider appointing a professional executor, such as your solicitor.

Avoiding these Will writing mistakes

Though there are certainly a great deal of potential pitfalls when making a Will, there are absolutely ways to avoid them. We would recommend working with an experienced, Will-writing solicitor who can help to ensure that your wishes for the future are recorded in a way that will be clear, concise and watertight.

If you’d like to speak to us about where to start, please do get in touch.