Personal Circumstances

If you are Married...
Don’t assume ‘my other half will get everything’. Without a Will, if you have children your spouse may only inherit part your estate. If you have no children your spouse may have to share your estate with his/her parents-in-law.

Perhaps one of the most important reasons for writing a Will is for the protection of your children.

You should consider who would look after your children in the event of your death. The only safe way is to make this known through your Will. If there is no Will, then the Court will decide on the future of your children, and it may not be what you would have wished.

The increasing complexity of modern family life has made Will planning more important than ever. Second marriages are common and estates are often larger than might be expected, mainly because of house price inflation. Married people most certainly need a Will.

For a Will to be drawn up to cover your exact needs:
Telephone 0845 166 2457 or
E-mail
And request a no obligation visit by one of our consultants.

If you are Divorced or Separated...
Getting divorced does not cancel a Will, but a gift to a divorced spouse lapses, unless a contrary intention appears in the Will.

If you are Co-habiting...
Don’t assume that you have the same legal rights to inherit as a married couple. Presently unmarried couples have no guaranteed rights to inherit whatsoever and married couples can only guarantee to inherit if there is a Will.

A Co-habiting couple have very little rights under the law when their relationship terminates. However, the Law Reform (Succession) Act 1995 now makes provision, which on the death of a cohabitee a claim may be made for provision under the Inheritance (Provision for Families and Dependents) Act 1975 rather than under Intestacy Rules, as was the case previously. A new section was added to the 1975 Act for a cohabitee to make a claim providing they have lived together during the whole of the previous two years in the same household as husband and wife.

• People may live together as husband and wife. However, they have no automatic right to the family home or to maintenance if the relationship subsequently breaks up.
• The length of the relationship has little bearing upon acquiring any additional rights or even in improving a person’s legal position (apart from the two year period mentioned above).
• Cohabitees have no automatic rights under the laws of succession. Therefore, it is absolutely essential that cohabitee’s have Wills drafted, if they wish to provide for their partners upon their death
• If one of the Cohabitees owns the house solely, and dies, the other cohabitee has no automatic rights to live there nor to make any financial claim upon the sale of the property. The only person entitled to live there, or benefit from the sale, is the person who owns the property. It is very difficult to prove an interest in a property if there is no written agreement.
• If the property is jointly owned as Tenants in Common, each owns a share of the property. If one cohabitee dies intestate, that share of the property would be distributed to relatives under the Intestacy Rules. To provide security and peace of mind to the surviving cohabitee it is essential that their Wills mirror each other and give their share of the property to the other.
• It is absolutely critical for co-habitees to make a Will. Unless there is a Will there is no guarantee that their partner (or children) will be provided for after death.

Parental Responsibility (Unmarried fathers)
A mother of a child automatically has parental responsibility. If the father is married to the mother he automatically has parental responsibility. An unmarried father DOES NOT have ‘Parental Responsibility’ unless the child was born on or after 1 December 2003 and the fathers name is on the birth certificate. However, he may acquire it either by agreement with the mother or by Court Order. The agreement with the mother must be made in the correct form and registered with the Principal Registry at Somerset House.

If the mother and father subsequently marry, and legitimise their child they both have ‘Parental Responsibility’.

If You are Single...
Making a Will is the best way of making sure that what happens to your property is in accord with your wishes. Even if you have no family, you will want to make sure that your possessions go where you wish - perhaps friends or charities that you have supported during your lifetime.

The fact is, if you die without a Will, the law decides how your possessions will be divided up amongst your family. Even remote cousins could be legally entitled to a share in what you own.

You can easily imagine the kind of problems this can create - and frequently does create when someone dies without leaving a Will. What’s more, the question “who gets what” can lead to complicated legal disputes. The family may have to wait months or even years for the whole matter to be sorted out - and may lead to big legal costs in the process.

If you want your will updating...
Circumstances can often change, wealth fluctuates, families grow etc. and taking all of the possibilities into account the Testator should always be advised to review his Will at regular intervals to see if there have been any variations that need to be addressed.

These include:

• Birth of children - Whom the Testator would like to include as beneficiaries and to make provision for the appointment of Testamentary Guardians.
• Marriage - Marriage will revoke an existing Will just as if it had never existed, unless it was written in contemplation of the marriage. Should the Testator therefore die after marrying or re-marrying without having made a new Will he would die intestate.
• Separation - Separation of spouses may lead to a desire to change a Will to exclude any benefit passing to the estranged spouse.
• Divorce - Divorce cancels those parts of the Will, which relate to the divorced spouse.
• Retirement - Often retirement is a point in their lives at which people take a different view of their property and families. This may encourage them to think more about the certainty of eventual death and the need to make a Will. For example ‘In Service Death Benefit’ will no longer apply upon retirement.
• Inheriting further property - This may significantly alter the value of a Testator’s estate and how he might wish to dispose of it.
• Changes in the Law - This may relate to either succession or taxation. Government policy and statutory adjustments may affect the importance of making a Will or prompt the need to change an existing one.
• An existing Will may contain a legacy that has been distorted by inflation
• Your circumstances may have changed
• An existing Will may refer to an executor who may have died.
• An existing Will can be updated using a codicil, or by re-writing your Will.