According to research carried out by Canada Life in 2020, 59% of UK adults haven’t got round to writing a will, which amounts to 31 million people. What these people may not realise is that their money, property and belongings will all be divided according to strict legal rules when they die, rather than in the way which they might have wished. Once people are made aware of this fact they tend to get a will written fairly quickly, but then they often make a second mistake – that of thinking that writing a will is the end of the process. The truth of the matter is that, in order for a will to remain effective, it needs to be revised on a regular basis, and that you should be updating your will whenever specific life-events take place.
As experts in family law, we not only deal with wills and probate but also other issues such as adoption and divorce. What all of these issues demonstrate is how difficult it can be to have to deal with legal problems at a time of emotional stress. This is particularly true if a loved one has recently died and the family they left behind discover that the will they wrote several years ago is no longer fit for purpose. That’s the risk you run if you don’t get round to updating your will.
Many people don’t realise, for example, that if they divorce and remarry after writing a will then the will as originally written no longer has any legal force, being revoked. The result of not updating your will in these circumstances – circumstances which are more likely than ever as second and even third marriages become more prevalent – is that you will be treated as if you’d died without having written a will at all, and your estate divided according to the laws of intestacy. These laws state that the first £250,000 of any estate, plus personal belongings, will be given to the surviving spouse. The rest of the estate is then divided equally between the surviving spouse and the children of the deceased, whether these children were the result of a first or second marriage. Each child will receive an equal share, with those under 18 having their share held in trust. Second or third marriages could very easily throw up complicated family scenarios which mean that, for example, the family home is divided equally between a surviving spouse and children from a previous marriage. This is highly likely to cause the kind of conflict which writing a will is supposed to prevent in the first place. Updating your will on a regular basis is the only definite way of ensuring that complications of this kind don’t arise.
Another complex scenario could arise if the party in question has divorced – which revokes any existing will – and is then cohabiting with a new partner. If this is the situation you are in then, unless you have gone to the trouble of updating your will then your new partner will receive nothing when you die, and may find themselves having to go to court to make a claim against your estate under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. Clearly, this is the kind of emotional distress, not to mention expense, that writing a will in the first place was meant to avoid, and highlights exactly why updating your will could be so important.
Speaking generally, your will should be reviewed and updated if it needs to be every five years. In addition to regular reviews of this kind – designed to ensure that the will still reflect your life and your wishes following your death – you should be updating your will to reflect the following events:
- The birth of new children or grandchildren – updating your will to ensure that they are included
- If you get married, since any previous will is automatically revoked by a new will, running the risk of you dying intestate
- If you get divorced you should be updating your will, since the law will treat your ex-spouse as having predeceased you when the divorce is finalised
- If someone named in the ill dies before you. If this happens you need to think about what will now happen to the part of your estate gifted to the late beneficiary, and whether that still reflects your wishes.
- If the person chosen to be executor of your will dies or is for some reason no longer suited to the roll. It can be very damaging if there is nobody ready and able to administer your estate and control any trusts created when you die, so updating your will to ensure that a suitable executor is in place is vital.
You also need to look into updating your will if, subsequent to writing it, you have made a promise to someone else which is not reflected in the text of the will. The person in question may well decide to launch a legal challenge on the base of the promise made, and whether they convince the court or not the process is likely to be very distressing for both the individual and the rest of your family. Updating your will to reflect any promises made subsequent to writing it could avoid a difficult scenario such as this.
If updating your will involves only minor changes, they can be introduced in the form of a codicil. This is a separate short document written and witnessed in the same manner as the original will. Major changes made when updating your will should result in an entirely new will being written, as changes to the body of an existing will could open it up to later legal challenges. Once a new will has been written, the original and any copies made need to be destroyed.
If you’d like to find out more about updating your will please call us on 0161 429 7251 or email us at [email protected]. We’ve recently passed our Cyber Essential accreditation, something which demonstrates our forward-thinking attitude and determination to remain ahead of the competition. The first 20-minute appraisal is provided free of charge, and we’ll give you the first appointment for a fixed fee, so you don’t have to worry about how much our advice is going to cost. If you want to explore our wider charging system then please take a look here.
