The hard­est part of prepar­ing a Will is fac­ing up to your own mor­tal­i­ty and decid­ing what you would like to hap­pen after your death.

There are many impor­tant mat­ters to con­sid­er when mak­ing a Will but you will need choose who to appoint as your Execu­tors and Beneficiaries.

The Execu­tor is the per­son that car­ries out the instruc­tions con­tained in your Will and the Ben­e­fi­cia­ries receive your mon­ey or oth­er assets.

You should also con­sid­er your Inher­i­tance Tax posi­tion as this could sig­nif­i­cant­ly reduce the amount pass­ing to your Beneficiaries.

Appoint­ment or Will Questionnaire

The next stage is to decide whether you wish to meet your Solic­i­tor to dis­cuss mat­ters or if you would pre­fer to com­plete a questionnaire.

Meet­ing your Solic­i­tor is usu­al­ly the best course of action as it allows you to dis­cuss any con­cerns you may have about your Will. The con­ver­sa­tion will also allow your Solic­i­tor to iden­ti­fy areas that you need to con­sid­er when mak­ing your Will, for exam­ple if you have young chil­dren. How­ev­er, the ques­tion­naire is suf­fi­cient­ly detailed to allow your Solic­i­tor to iden­ti­fy any mat­ters you may need to consider.

Draft Will Preparation

Once you have decid­ed what you would like to put into your Will, your Solic­i­tor will begin to pre­pare a draft for your approval. This involves record­ing your instruc­tions in writ­ing and using legal ter­mi­nol­o­gy to ensure your instruc­tions are clear (from a legal point of view).

Draft Will Approval

The draft Will is sent to you for your approval along with a ​‘plain Eng­lish’ ver­sion. This allows you the oppor­tu­ni­ty to read your Will with­out hav­ing to deci­pher com­plex legal terminology.

The main aim of the draft is to ensure that all your wish­es have been accu­rate­ly record­ed and the names and addressed con­tained in the will are spelt cor­rect­ly. This is your oppor­tu­ni­ty to make changes to your will before it is signed.

Sign­ing of Engrossed Will

Once you are hap­py with your draft Will, you shall need to sign an ​‘engrossed copy’ to make it legal­ly valid. An engrossed copy is the final ver­sion of your Will.

Your Solic­i­tor will make an appoint­ment for you to sign the will at the office and shall guide you through the sign­ing process. Alter­na­tive­ly, your will can be sent to you for sign­ing at home.

Although the sign­ing of a Will only involves three sig­na­tures (you and two wit­ness­es), there is a very strict sign­ing process. If the process is not fol­lowed cor­rect­ly, your Will shall not be legal­ly valid and this is one of the most com­mon caus­es for Wills not tak­ing effect.

To arrange a dis­cus­sion about mak­ing a Will, please get in touch with Paul Clark on 01625 523988 or mail@​JBGass.​com