Wills

[Blades_fan]

If someone makes a will and leaves it in the possesion of his/her solicitor and the person does not inform any of his/her family of the existence of the will,when the person dies how are the powers that be made aware of the will?
I can't imagine firms of solicitors trawling through the obituries in the local newspaper looking to see if one of their clients has passed away.
Thanks for any info.

[Buenchico]

I used to draft wills for a living. One of the things I stressed to my clients was that making a will is a completely pointless thing to do unless the testator either tells someone where it is, or leaves it where it can't possibly be missed.

As your post implies, hundreds of thousands of wills get completely ignored because nobody knows of their existence.

Leaving a will with a solicitor is probably not a good idea. Firstly, this tends to happen when the testator has named the solicitor as one of his executors. That's hardly ever a good idea because the solicitor will charge a fortune to administer the estate, whereas (unless the estate is incredibly complicated) getting probate is incredibly easy to do. (No solicitor is required). Secondly, it makes far more sense to keep the will where it will definitely be found.

My own will is in the drawer where all of my other key documents (e.g. my birth certificate and passport) are kept. It's exactly where someone would expect to find it. It's in an envelope that has the word 'Will' printed in massive letters on both sides of it. Further, I've sent photocopies of my will to both of the executors, telling them exactly where the original is kept.

Chris

[dzug]

As Chris says, there's a high chance it won't be found.

However many solicitors these days will register the will on one of a number of voluntary private registers - which does increase the chance somewhat.

When you apply for Letters of Administration (in the absence of a will) the Probate Office will be quite searching in its questions on what steps you have taken to search for it.