The Importance of Making a Will

Make sure you're in control

By writing a will you can decide what happens to your property and possessions (your estate) after your death.

Although you don’t have to make one by law, it’s the best way to ensure your loved ones are taken care of and your assets are protected with your estate passed on to family and friends exactly as you intended.

You can choose who is responsible for administering your estate, who will care for your children and even specify your wishes in relation to your funeral.

If you die without a will, your assets may be distributed under the laws of intestacy rather than your wishes.

Preparing your will

Writing a will should be viewed as an important addition to your overall financial planning. It needn’t be an onerous affair either.

To make it even easier for you, Legal & Medical now offer a Will Writing Service through our partnership with Flint Bishop.

Keeping your will up-to-date

Once you’ve made a will, you should review it every 5 years and/or after any major change in your life such as getting married, separated or divorced or having a child.

Indeed, the main driver for a lot of people putting their will in place is to ensure they have nominated guardianship for their children.

Any change you make to your will must be by ‘codicil’ (an addition, amendment or supplement to an existing will) or by making a new will.

Inheritance tax planning

There are many reasons for writing and maintaining an up-to-date will, not least for inheritance tax planning purposes. It can be a beneficial and cost effective way of reducing or mitigating potential inheritance tax.

If your estate exceeds the inheritance threshold (currently £325,000), it will be subject to inheritance tax when you die.

Through inheritance tax planning there are ways you can minimise any tax liability and put in place vehicles to pay any potential tax bill on your death. Transferring assets through the use of lifetime gifts and/or creating an inheritance tax-efficient fund are just two examples.

Benjamin Franklin once wrote “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”

Writing a will cannot help you with the former but it can help with the latter of these certainties (as well as give you and your loved ones peace of mind).

Article by Stuart Forrest
Independent Financial Adviser at Legal & Medical Investments
December 2010