Changing A Will/adding A Codicil

[Dinger2]

I am 65 in may'15. I made a will several years ago. Before we started, my Solicitor asked me to add up all my assets which included several savings accounts a small share portfolio,a premium bond holding and the sale of a house that was mortgage free.to reach a total figure
I told him I wanted to leave my estate firstly to my Mother who is a fairly fit and active 91 yr old (dads passed on) and secondly to about 8 1st cousins and thirdly to about 6 or 7 lifelong friends from schooldays,one of which died a few months back.Understand the first sentence of the will leaves everything to my Mum should she survive me,which is unlikely but possible. The solicitors idea was to divide the sum total by 100 so to make it possible to give the beneficiaries a share (or 2or 3 or 4 or more shares according to their closeness to me)and I have had a re-think about the amount I should leave certain individuals (if anything at all as I havn't seen them in years and they've long faded off the Christmas card list and I now favour giving much more to charities. So do I make these changes to my will or does it sound like a total re-build? Do I go back to the same solicitor (who charged £150 for the original as he said there was a lot of work involved) or start afresh with a new one and officialy annul the former ?? The solicitor is a nice man but I think his new partner just thinks of me as a soft-touch. grateful for any advice,thanks.

[Buenchico]

You could do it by a codicil but a new will would probably be better (leaving less room for misinterpretation of your wishes).

I use to draft wills for a living. My advice would be to get hold of a copy of this book
Amazon.co.uk User Recommendation
It's in almost every public library; it won't matter if it's an older edition. (While the law on intestacy has changed fairly recently, the basic stuff about writing a will remains valid).

Then draft your own will, following the advice in the book. If you're absolutely 100% sure that you've got it worded perfectly, type it out on plain paper and sign it in front of two witnesses (who shouldn't be beneficiaries under your will). It's an easy process and no great formality is involved. (My own will was witnessed, by a couple of people I happened to be working with that day, in a Tesco car park!).

However if you've got any doubts about your draft, then take it to a solicitor and say 'Tidy that up for me'. (Remember also that some charities provide a free will-writing service to those who'll leave them something).

[DaisyNonna]

Hoping not to die just yet. Fed up with charities offering to write my will if I leave something to them. What would happen if I decided to leave them £1?
Have written my will already, lodged with my solicitor, copy in my bureau, family aware of this. Any other precautions I should take?

[Buenchico]

Daisy:
Sounds fine to me as long as you haven't named the solicitor as an executor. Doing so is madness, as it gives him the right to take part of your estate in fees, which might turn out to be rather bigger than you'd have expected! Naming 'non-professional' executors makes far more sense. (They can still engage the services of their own solicitor if they feel that they can't cope with the task personally).

[Canary42]

///They can still engage the services of their own solicitor if they feel that they can't cope with the task personally///

That's the way I did it - and I've told them so. And my solicitor actually recommended me that way too, rather than nominate him.

[Canary42]

P.S. Dinger2, if you write a fresh Will and don't use the previous solicitor, then I suggest a formal letter to him informing him the copy he has is superseded and therefore null and void. Not essential but might avoid hiccups later.

[DaisyNonna]

Thanks Buenchico, was done a few years ago. I will check.

[Arrods]

Buenchico's right. Just to give you an idea, putting a recent probate in hands of a solicitor (they weren't even executors) cost our family £5,000+. And that was for a simple estate.

[Peter Pedant]

Good advice from BC again ( Hi Chris !)

I dont think £150 is a low amount to pay for a will

I still think you need help professionally as it is not clear whether your money is to go to your mum and THEN to your frenz and after they have croaked to charity. It could be done

or if your mum is alive then she gets it all to do what she likes with and the frenz and charities get nowt so long as she is alive at your death

You can leave money to a dead friend if you specify it is to go to his heirs but you can also leave it so that if he is dead his grasping relatives dont get it ( ademption )

so yeah I think after you have decided who gets what
I think you should go back to No 1 - but NOT name him as an exec.