To make a Will you need to be over 18 years of age, unless you are on active military service, and have ‘testamentary capacity’ – i.e. you must be of sound mind.

If you die without a will, all of your assets (money, land, personal belongings) will be distributed in accordance with the ‘Intestacy Rules’.  These strict rules may not be appropriate for your individual family circumstances.

Although the Intestacy Rules were updated in 2014, some modern family setups are still not catered for. For example, cohabitees who have lived together for many years, but are not married or in a civil partnership, have no automatic rights of inheritance under the Intestacy Rules.  This can be problematic if the house is just owned by one cohabitee.  The surviving cohabitee has no automatic legal rights to inherit the property and could potentially find themself homeless, causing unnecessary uncertainty and distress.

The Intestacy Rules also set out a list of people who are entitled to administer your estate, known as ‘Personal Representatives’ who may not necessarily be who you would choose to fulfil this role.  If you make a Will, you can appoint one or more ‘Executor’ to administer your estate after your death.

It is still possible to make a Will even after receiving a diagnosis of dementia, especially in the early stages. In these circumstances, however, we always recommend that an assessment of your ‘testamentary capacity’ is carried out by a medical professional.  The existence of such a report will be extremely valuable in the event that the validity of your Will is challenged after your death.

No, as a Will cannot expire, although it may be that some of the information is out of date, and some of the beneficiaries may have passed away.  You may have got married, or divorced, or re-married, and all of these circumstances can affect the operation of your Will You should review your Will every 2-3 years, even if you do not make any changes, or when there is a significant event in your life, e.g. having children, marriage, divorce.

You don’t need to update your Will if the only change is to the beneficiaries’ addresses. As for including new grandchildren, it depends on how your existing Will is worded, so we recommend that you speak to us for advice.

No.  Once a Will has been signed and witness, it cannot be amended and you will need to make a new Will or a Codicil depending upon the extent of the changes. You can remove existing beneficiaries and add new ones, but simply writing amendments onto your existing Will is not legally binding, and rectifying the situation could potentially be very costly and time-consuming for your Executors to deal with after your death, and could also lead to a disputed Will.  You should seek legal advice if you are considering removing a beneficiary from your Will, particularly if the beneficiary is a child, grand-child, spouse, cohabitee or civil partner.