Unto my wife, my second best bed

David Crozier

Recently, I met with a solicitor to discuss some company-related legal matters. As I got up to go, and as we concluded the ‘Doing anything nice at the weekend?’ chat, I mentioned, almost in passing, that I thought my wife and I should update our wills.

The solicitor made me sit back down and refused to let me leave the building without agreeing the content of the new wills for him to draft.

I was a bit taken aback, but of course he was absolutely right. None of us knows what tomorrow brings, and he was able to tell me about three occasions when clients had mentioned to him that they should update their wills, and before the new wills were signed the client had died.

Every time I present on estate planning, I start with the question: Who has a will? And usually, only between a third and a half of the room have done so. And that includes groups of solicitors. That’s a lot of hassle waiting to happen for families, a lot of unnecessary legal fees waiting to be paid, and potentially thousands upon thousands of pounds in tax waiting to be leaked away.

If your will needs to be changed, then it needs to be changed now: go to your solicitor and get it done, do not pass “Go”, do not collect £200.

PS don’t do it yourself, use a professional; preferably a solicitor experienced in estate planning. You only have one estate, that (I assume) you want to bequeath to the people that are most important to you in the entire world.

Do it properly! “Let a will be ever so fair, a slip in form is fatal.” Lord Mansfield (1757)

As always, happy to hear from you with any queries or concerns you may have about this or any other issue.