It is believed that 59% of the adults in the UK do not have a Will in place.

This means that if they die without having made a valid Will at the date of their deaths, then their estates will pass under the Intestacy Rules and they will have no say as to who will inherit from them and who will be entitled to deal with their estate following their death.

If you happen to be in the 41% of adults who have made a Will, then you ought to consider when you last reviewed it.

Why should I review my Will?

Ideally, you should make a Will and then review it every 3 to 5 years regardless of whether there have been any significant changes in your life.

However, if your personal or financial circumstances change then this might prompt you to review your Will slightly sooner, for example:

The birth of a new family member

Does your current Will make provision for this new family member? If not, and you wish for them to benefit from your estate following your death, then you will need to amend the Will to include them.

Marriage or Divorce

Marriage usually automatically cancels a Will, but divorce only cancels the provision for the spouse you are divorcing. As you can imagine this can be quite a surprise for many clients who are planning to marry or divorce, so it’s important to speak to a solicitor before going through either of these major life events.

Nowadays many people live with their long-term partners as though they are married without ever actually getting around to getting married. If this is your situation, then it’s important to know that unmarried partners do not inherit under the Intestacy Rules (the laws that direct where your estate should pass if you haven’t made a Will), and neither will stepchildren.

Children from previous relationships

Many families are ‘blended families’ meaning that they are often families that have merged because of a second marriage and often children are brought into this new family relationship too. It is common for our clients to want to make provision for their new spouse whilst protecting their assets for their own children from previous relationships, so it is important to make sure that you have Wills in place to do this to avoid upset and the potential for arguments following your death.

Change in financial circumstances

It is important to review your Will if your financial circumstances change, for example after you’ve bought a house, paid off your mortgage or inherited some money. It is equally as important to make sure that you are reviewing your Will if your assets are decreasing i.e. if your assets have lost value or if your expenditure has increased significantly to ensure that any provision in your current Will is still appropriate. If there are insufficient assets in an estate to pay the legacies (fixed amounts of money) in a Will, then this can cause problems after death.

Preparing or reviewing your Will is also a great opportunity to review your estate as a whole and to make sure that you are up to date with the current advice regarding inheritance tax and anything else that might affect your estate. This will be particularly important with the changes to how pensions are treated for inheritance tax purposes proposed for 2027.

What about Lasting Powers of Attorney?

Whilst reviewing or preparing your Will, you should also give some thought to Lasting Powers of Attorney.

Lasting Powers of Attorney are legal documents required to give others authority to make decisions on your behalf regarding your property and financial affairs, and your health and welfare.

If you do not have Lasting Powers of Attorney in place and you lose your mental capacity, then your loved ones may need to make an application to the Court of Protection to appoint someone to make these decisions for you. This is a time consuming and costly application, so it is generally better to make sure that you have Lasting Powers of Attorney in place.

Next Steps…

If you would like any information or advice on writing or reviewing your Will, or Lasting Powers of Attorney, please contact me on 01530 564498 or by email at m.lovell@timms-law.com.

For more information about Wills and Probate, visit our webpage here.