Making wills

I have drafted a lot of Wills in my time, covering many different situations and clients. Everyone is different. Many people have simple family structures, but many don’t and that can be when it can become much more difficult for clients to decide how to distribute their estates, especially if the value involved is substantial.

Single Will

This might perhaps be prepared on behalf of a client who is unmarried and wants to leave assets onto family members, friends, charities or a combination of these.

Mirror Wills

Commonly these are arranged by spouses or civil partners and often leave all assets on the first death to each other, before then passing to the death of the survivor to children or other beneficiaries. These are often quite simple but might include a final gift to cover where the survivor’s estate might go if they die leaving no spouse or descendants.

Life Interest Trust Wills

These are often put in place where families have a more complicated structure (perhaps second marriages involving children/step-children) and/or there are concerns about care fees.

These might involve a gift of the first deceased’s half share of the property to the surviving spouse and then this share passes on to children on the survivor’s death, regardless of what the survivor has said in their Will.

Discretionary Trust Wills

These are more complicated but can be useful if a lot of flexibility is needed. It is possible give either part or all of an estate into a trust to allow trustees to allocate the capital and income as they see fit, generally being guided by a letter of wishes the person making the Will might have left. This could be useful, for example, if someone was leaving assets onto children and one child was potentially going to divorce. If that child received assets directly then they could potentially lose these in a divorce whereas if they passed into a discretionary trust, they would be protected.