In law, a charity is simply another person. So just as you can leave a gift of money to a family relative, you can leave a gift to any charity. If a beneficiary is under 18 when you die, then the law automatically places his or her gift in trust until he or she reaches For small gifts, especially to minors who are not your own, you may want to avoid the administrative burden that managing a trust would place on your executors, and give the gift to the parents instead, either to keep on behalf of the child or to use as they choose for the child.
We also include a gift-over provision allowing you to nominate alternative beneficiaries for the gift of the residual estate. The law says that an executor may not accept payment for his work unless the Will expressly authorises it.
But if you want a professional executor, they will usually act only if they are paid for his time. So we always provide a simple sentence authorising professional executors to be remunerated. It would be most unusual for a family member acting as an executor to demand to be paid for their time, but they could reasonably ask for repayment of expenses. After your death, it is unlikely that those closest to you will be thinking hard about the cost of winding up your estate.
However, they may require professional valuations of certain assets to satisfy HMRC. The professionals who provide these valuations generally charge far more than they would dare to charge you if you were alive.
In all but the simplest Wills we provide an instruction by you to stop this happening. Strictly, you do not legally own your own dead body and, therefore, cannot specify what should happen to it. However, if you make your funeral wishes clear in your Will, it is most likely that your executors and relatives will carry them out.
A letter of intent is a side letter that is not part of your Will and not binding. However, executors tend to follow the instructions you give in it. A letter of intent gives you an opportunity to cover business arrangements and personal matters in depth. It is not registered, unlike your Will is, so no-one except your personal representatives needs ever know its contents. You can create a trust on purpose or by operation of law such as when you leave a gift to minor children under Trusts are a complicated concept, which we explain here.
Our provisions give you maximum flexibility and control of how any trust is managed, freeing the trustees from some of the bonds of the Trustee Act that are unsuitable for a trust managed within your family.
Trusts that create life interests are used to control ownership of the assets you place into the trusts. The beneficiaries may use the assets during their lifetimes or subject to other conditions after which the trusts are dissolved and ownership of the assets passes to other people you choose. The most common use is to provide security for a partner or second wife or husband during her or his lifetime, but for the assets eventually to pass to children, some of whom might be from earlier marriages and who otherwise might be accidentally disinherited if the entire estate passed to your second wife.
Tax is payable only on the value of your estate above a certain amount. This amount is called the threshold or the nil rate band. There used to be tax advantages to using a discretionary trust and placing assets valued up to the value of the nil-rate band into it. Those tax advantages are no longer so advantageous, but using a discretionary trust can protect your personal property from claims by creditors or in divorce settlements or if your husband or wife remarries.
In addition, the Will must be attested correctly. It must be signed and dated by the person making it, in front of two witnesses who print their names and addresses. Like all our documents, our Wills are written in plain English.
This not only makes editing easy, but also makes it more certain that your wishes are followed. Complicated and unusual words may make the document sound more impressive but they do not add to the legality of the document.
We follow the normal, modern legal convention of using the masculine form of a word regardless of the gender of the person. The documents are equally as suitable for women as for men. We can provide copies in other formats on request. Guidance notes are provided with each last Will and testament template. These explain how to edit the document and provide extensive information about why we include each paragraph and the decisions you might need to make.
Once you have finished editing the document, you need to print, date and sign your Will to make it binding. We explain exactly how to do that in the guidance notes that we provide with the template, and also on this page.
You do not need a solicitor or Will writer to review or to approve your Will for it to be legally binding. The document becomes binding as a result of the process of signing it in front of two witnesses, not because of the involvement of a solicitor in preparing or reviewing it. If you need specific legal advice, that is an 'opinion' about how the law applies to your circumstances, you might approach a law firm regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
However, unless you think that your wishes are contentious and will be challenged at probate or if you have personal posessions and property overseas, the advice you need may be practical rather than legal. You might also seek estate planning or tax advice from a financial planner or accountant if you want to minimise the amount of tax eventually paid. However, this is not a requirement. You can write a Will at any time. Most people consider a new Will when their financial circumstances change, or when relationships change.
The Law Society advises that you review your Will every five years and that you make a new Will after a major life change such as having a child, marriage, separation or divorce. It is possible to change a Will without making a new one, but amending a previous Will is more difficult than making a new one. A Will is an important legal document, and we believe that everyone should make one. Because the law sets out how your personal property is divided if you don't have a Will, without one, the people you care about are less likely to receive specific gifts whether of financial or sentimental value that you want to pass on to them.
The reason why most people don't write a Will is the financial cost of doing so. We want to remove that barrier. Our free templates are most suitable for less complicated estates that are valued below the IHT nil rate band when no tax would be paid. Our commercial motivation is simply that once you have used a Net Lawman Will, we hope that you come back to us for legal documents for other aspects of your personal or business affairs. Providing a complete, commonly used, free template that is based on our more complex paid versions is a great way for our visitors to assess the quality of our documents.
Note that our free templates do not contain provisions that seek to minimise tax. If this is important to you, you should look at the other Net Lawman last Will and testament templates, a number of which cover basic IHT planning largely as illustrated by HM Revenue and Customs. When you use our online Will writing service, our software creates your Will for you, based on the answers you give in our questionnaire.
We save your answers every time you move to a new page, so if you want to take a break at any point, you can return later without having to start from the beginning. When you have completed the questionnaire, you can choose for your will to be e-mailed to you immediately in Microsoft Word format compatible with many different word processors , or you can arrange for an experienced Will writer to review your document so that you have confidence that it is legally sound and that your wishes will be followed.
If you choose our review service, we aim to check your Will and send it back to you within 72 hours. Creating your Will using our software is completely free, but there is a cost for the optional review service. Sale of services Consultancy agreements Business service provision Household services provision Tradesmen's contracts Business sale Business sale Company sale Shares sale Lending Loans Guarantees and indemnities Statutory demands.
Inheritance and Trustees' Power Act Administration of Estates Act The lawyer can answer your questions or help you through the process. You will be offered this option when you complete the document. At the end, you receive it in Word and PDF formats. You can modify it and reuse it. Back to top. Home Documents. Marriage, Divorce and Family. Last Will and Testament. Formats Word and PDF. Size 3 to 5 pages. Rating 4. How does it work? Choose this template Start by clicking on "Fill out the template".
Complete the document Answer a few questions and your document is created automatically. Save - Print Your document is ready! Optional legal consultation You can choose to get help from a lawyer after filling out the document.
Last Will and Testament A Will is a legally binding document that sets out the wishes of the person making it the " Testator " regarding the distribution of their worldwide property and assets.
A Testator must have " testamentary capacity " to make a Will, which means that: 1 the Testator understands the nature of making a Will and its effects; 2 the Testator understands the extent of the property of which they are disposing; 3 the Testator understands and appreciates the claims to which they ought to give effect; and 4 the Testator must have no disorder of the mind that perverts their sense of right or prevents the exercise of their natural faculties in disposing of their property by Will.
What is a Will? Wills where minor children will be beneficiaries If the Testator has children under 18 years of age and wishes them to inherit all or part of the estate then the Testator must decide which type of trust is required for the children before completing this document.
This document is not appropriate for a Testator who wishes to leave assets to minor children in the following circumstances: 1 if the Testator wishes to set up a Discretionary Trust or an Immediate Post-Death Interests IPDI for minor children; 2 if the Testator is not sure of which type of trust to choose and has not sought professional trust planning advice; 3 if the Testator does not understand the tax implications of the different types of trusts and has not sought professional taxation advice; 4 if the Testator is the parent of a minor child with a limited life expectancy who is likely to die before reaching 18 years of age; 5 if any minor child has disabilities requiring ongoing specialist care; or 6 if the Testator is a grandparent and wishes to leave assets to their minor grandchildren.
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