Wills and Inheritance Tax​

• Making a will

  Writing a will can be complicated and time consuming. That said, unless something very weird happens, dividing up your property after your death is something you'll probably only have the chance to do once. That means it's worth getting it right. There are a few basic steps to follow to make your will.

  • Get your estate valued

  Obviously enough, you'll need to know what you're leaving behind you in order to divide it all up. Your list should include things like any properties you own, any savings and investments you have, your household contents and any other valuables. Remember that any unpaid debts you've run up will count against the value of your estate, so factor in things like loans, outstanding credit card balances and overdrafts. Usually, this sort of overall valuation is something you'll want to get done professionally.

  • Decide where it's all going

  Depending on your circumstances, this might be the easiest or hardest part of the job. In addition to family members and other typical beneficiaries, now's the time to make up your mind about leaving something to charities or other organisations. Remember that there may be funeral bills to pay as well, along with the various administration fees and tax.

  • Pick your executors

  This is less sinister than it sounds. An executor is simply someone who'll deal with all the admin of making sure your estate actually gets to the people you want it to. It can be a big job, so make sure you choose someone who can handle it and doesn't mind the work.

  • Write your will

  You've got a few options as to how you go about this. Talking to a lawyer's usually a smart decision, as long as they're properly registered with a recognised authority like the Law Society. Some banks and charities have services to help put your will together, too. Where are even specialist will writers, although you should check that they're members of the Institute of Professional Willwriters before going with them. As a last resort, you could have a crack at writing your will yourself—but we'll go over why that might not be such a brilliant idea a bit further down.

• Making sure your will is valid

  There are a few legal hoops to jump through to make sure your will's bullet-proof and watertight. It has to be in writing, for one thing. A spoken will doesn't carry a lot of weight, for instance. It also needs to be signed by you and witnessed by two other people to be valid. These witnesses really do have to be there when you sign the will, too. You can't just post someone a copy to sign later, for instance. Finally, while this might seem obvious enough, you need to be writing your will voluntarily, and while you have the 'mental capacity' to understand the effect it'll have on you, your possessions and your beneficiaries. Basically, no one can force or pressure you to sign a will you don't agree with, and it won't be valid if you didn't know exactly what you were doing when you signed it.

• Will stats: did you know?

  In the UK, most of us would rather die before talking with our friends or loved ones about money—and a lot of us end up doing just that. There are 31 million people in the country who don't have wills at all. That figure includes 85% of all people under 35. Even those who've done their homework haven't necessarily finished the job, though. Wills aren't set in stone the moment they're signed. You've got to keep them updated as your circumstances change over the years—something that 60% of us haven't bothered with.

  Overall, there are 5.4 million adults in the UK who don't even know how to get started writing their wills. Even so, as a nation of DIY fanatics and have-a-go heroes, it's probably no surprise that so many of us decide to try writing them anyway. In fact, about 7 in 10 of us say we'd be prepared to give it a go if it meant bringing down the costs. The trouble is, that last statistic alone is the cause of many of the problems people run into, seeing them ending up on the phone to a professional after all to fix the problems.

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