This post is about making your own Will and the pitfalls. A question we are often asked is can I make my own Will? The short answer is yes, you can. The real answer is, why would you?
Research by the Legal Services Board consumer panel found that 97% of professionally-drawn Wills went through probate without a hitch. The figure for homemade wills was nearer 50%. So, if you make your own Will, statistically half the time, it’s not going to do what you set out for you to do in the first place.
Making your Wills is a relatively cheap and easy process, and it’ll only take about an hour of your time. But if you really want to make your own Will, go ahead. What you’ve got It is you got to make sure you revoke your previous Wills. You’ve got to make sure you appoint your executors, your trustees and your guardians. Dispose of all your things, one of the most common problems with the homemade worlds is people just assume the only thing they own is their house and they forget their bank accounts, and their furniture and their clothes and their shoes and their car. And they just give away their house in their will. Making sure that everything else passes according to the laws of intestacy. But if you’re confident you can give everything away, and they’ll go to the right people, and you sign it and you attest it in the right way with two witnesses. Then,go ahead make your own Will.
But really, what you should do is give us a call, ask for some professional advice and do the sensible thing. Have your Will professionally drawn up and take away any doubt.
