A Will and a codicil

[puternut]

My Mother-in-law made a will some time ago (at least 10 years ago as far as I can ascertain).

The bulk of her estate consists of savings in various bank accounts. There is no property involved as she lives with her daughter (my sister-in-law) in the council house she has lived in for 35+ years. She (Sis-i-l) bought from the council some years ago. No problem as regards a home as there will always be one there.

As far as I can ascertain the will simply says split the cash between her children but with some other bequeaths to certain friends, organisations and to other relatives (i.e. grandchildren).

Since the will was drawn up there has been two major changes in that one of her (then 7) children has died and she now has great-grandchildren not mentioned at all 10 years ago. Whilst the first change makes no real difference to the will the omission of the last generation does.

Some of her surviving children would like to make some kind of change to give recognition to this new generation and I believe Ma-in-law is basically in agreement but I will personally try to ensure she is not being railroaded.

I believe the codicil will definitely be needed as with six surviving children I can see that, unless all is 100% watertight, someone will moan about someone elses (or other relatives) share.

The question I have is can these changes be affected to the will simply by adding a duly independently witnessed codicil?

I have not seen the original will but would assume that the amounts to children are as a percentage of her savings as opposed to a fixed amount as she did (or will not) know the exact amount she is leaving. I am unsure exactly how other requests are worded and am only guesssing they will be fixed amounts - possibly due a rethink as regards the amounts being a number of years out of date.

[joggerjayne]

Probably better, and no more expensive, so start again with a new Will. Much tidier.

[buildersmate]

The general way this is done is to leave fixed sums as legacies to individuals such as friends and then the rest of the estate by dividing the residue of the estate equally between children.
Thus if the willmaker wants to leave a specific legacy to a granchild it is done as a fixed sum.
The way that potential death of a child of the willmaker beforehand is dealt with is by using the sort of wording as follows:-
'to divide the residue of my estate equally between my son (name) and my son (name) and my daughter (name) and (so on for all of them) but if any of these children should die before me leaving children those children shall on attaining eighteen shall take the share which their parent would otherwise have inherited.
That way, the will doesn't have to be changed every time an unfortunate death occurs in the family.