You can't take it with you, but you can ensure who has it

An increasing number of people are needing more complicated Wills, in line with those currently being featured in the BBC 2 programme 'Can’t Take it With You', says Francis Durrant of Barr Ellison Solicitors in Cambridge, making it all the more worrying that 70% of people die without making a Will. 

 

“People wanting to leave money to charity or to leave uneven amounts to different relatives and people who are delaying writing a Will because they undecided how to divide their estate are some of the issues featured in the programme and we ourselves are seeing an increasing number where the Will is not straight forward.

Whatever people have to leave it’s important that they write a Will to ensure their estate is left with the people they want to leave it to and they don’t pay any unnecessary tax.”

Reasons why people are increasingly having more complicated Wills include the increase in couples cohabiting rather than marrying, more complicated trust provisions and more people having second marriages. “It is particularly important for unmarried couples to make Wills because they do not have the protections you automatically receive as a married couple,” says Francis. “Also trust provisions can be put in place that can actually end up saving tax and second or subsequent marriages obviously make Wills a lot more complicated.

People are also concerned about the possible remarriage of a survivor and how that would affect what they leave to loved ones. And even if people believe they have very straight forward requirements, with people living much longer they need to think about protecting funds against the increasing cost of long term care.”

Francis believes that it is often the fact that a Will is likely to be complicated that puts people off taking the plunge: “If people are worried about who should receive what or how they should go about it they should remember that any difficult decisions they have to make are likely to be far easier than leaving family with the stress of them dying intestate.”

 

It’s also important, he says, to remember to keep a Will updated to take into account any changes in beneficiaries’ needs and a person’s financial and personal circumstances. 

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