Making a will uk template

You can also include a charity in your will. Read full guidance on storing your will with the Probate Service. To help us improve GOV. It will take only 2 minutes to fill in. Cookies on GOV. UK We use some essential cookies to make this website work. The residual estate is given to one 'primary' beneficiary, such as a spouse or partner, with provision for gift over if that person does not survive you.

There is an option for gift over to trust or discretionary trust for another group of beneficiaries if your first choice does not survive you by more than a given time. Use this will if you have a young family or dependents who are not yet financially responsible. After specific gifts have been made, private company shares and business partnership interests are left as gifts to one person or party such as a sibling or adult child. The will establishes a discretionary trust up to the value of the nil rate band at the time of your death to protect assets for one set of beneficiaries such as your children until they reach the age of This has advantages of:.

Flexible trust provisions allow you to specify how the trust fund should be managed and spent. The remainder of the residual estate is apportioned between named beneficiaries such as your spouse or partner and your children in proportions you choose. Beneficiaries can be the same as those listed for discretionary trust. A checklist that you can complete to tell your executors and family where they might find important documents and personal information that will make the process of sorting out your affairs easier.

You should consider making a Will whether you are young or old, if you have a family to look after, or if you own a property or other valuable assets.

Net Lawman provides both last Will and testament templates that you can download and edit on your computer, and a quick online service where you tell us your wishes by answering simple questions in our questionnaire, and our software writes your Will immediately for you. If you would like peace of mind that your wishes will be carried out, we can arrange for a Will writer to review your Will made through our online service.

Your last Will and testament by definition is the most recent. However, the first lines of any Will usually revoke cancel any previous Wills you might have made. In your Will, you can nominate up to four people to work together as your executors. They are appointed through the process of obtaining a grant of probate when you die.

We also allow you to nominate alternatives if your first choices are unable or unwilling to take up the position. For detailed information about choosing guardians with parental responsibility for your children, we recommend that you read our article on providing for later generations.

You can make as many gifts to individuals as you like. These may include real and personal property, money in bank accounts, or other assets including digital assets.

When you give specific gifts, they are deemed to be free of tax. That means if tax is due on your estate, it is paid using the money and assets that you have not already given away your 'residual estate'. So you need to make sure that you do not accidentally deprive those closest to you by making too large gifts to less important people. You can read more about this here. 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. Overview Your will lets you decide what happens to your money, property and possessions after your death. If you die without a will, the law decides who gets what.

View a printable version of the whole guide. Related content How Inheritance Tax works: thresholds, rules and allowances Applying for probate Guidance on making wills using video-conferencing Intestacy - who inherits if someone dies without a will? Explore the topic Death and bereavement Inheritance Tax Elsewhere on the web Remember a charity in your will.

Is this page useful? I nominate full name …………………………………………………………………………………………………………. Special Bequests: …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………. In witness whereof I have signed this will in place ………………………………………………………………………. FREE Will Template Before you fill in your will template, please note: It is important that your will is valid and legally compliant in order for it to serve as your Last Will and Testament.