Making a Will is one of the most important things that you can do for your loved ones and ensures that your wishes will be followed after your death. Despite that, over two thirds of people in London die each year without making Wills (intestate) leaving the state to decide who will inherit. Will writing is not a complicated process and although you can do it yourself, it is safer to call in the services of a professional. That way you will be sure that your Will has followed the correct legal procedure and is valid.

The Will department of the Probate Bureau can advise on Will writing and draft a professional legal Will that best covers your interests. The Probate Bureau also provides storage facilities based in London, so even if your copy of the Will goes missing, following your death it can be produced easily.

The inheritance laws are simple to understand and in the absence of a Will, they will be applied. For example, the law does not count any non-legalised relationships such as cohabitation as grounds for inheritance. If this is your situation, it might be that following your death, your beloved partner of 20 years is left with nothing while your long lost brother in Australia inherits the lot! An extreme sounding scenario but sadly this is not that uncommon. Friends or carers are likewise ignored, despite any extenuating circumstances or special relationships you may have.

If you have children or dependents, your Will protects their future and outlines their future care in accordance with your wishes on what is best for them. You can also make a charitable donation. Wills help charities continue with their vital work and even a small bequest is appreciated.

In some cases, you may need specialised legal advice before Will writing. A watertight Will is essential if there are a number of people, who could make a claim on your property, for example. Other types of more complex Wills include the setting up of a trust fund from your estate or there may be other issues. Wills can be as complex or as simple as you need and taking professional advice is crucial to making the best decision. Remember that Wills must be updated following changes of circumstances, for example following a divorce, or birth in the family.

Wills make life much easier for your family after your death. You can state whether you wish to be buried or cremated and the type of service you want. Although you may feel at the time of Will writing that you do not really care, it will help your family at a time when they will be struggling to cope with bereavement following your death.

Wills help keep things simple and avoid the cost and upset of litigation after your death. Many people enjoy the process of Will writing and find peace of mind knowing that all their affairs are in order. Contact the Probate Bureau and find out more about their Will service and fees and if you live in or around the London area or in England meet with a representative in your own home.

A Trust fund can be created at any time and be used for a variety of purposes. Trusts enable you to pass on money or property while you are still alive, can protect the family’s assets after your death, fund a charity, or protect the assets of someone who is too young or incapacitated to deal with financial matters themselves. Trusts are not a new invention. One of the oldest trusts in existence is the City of London Trust, which has been in operation for the last 800 years and is used to finance a range of activities including the maintenance of Tower Bridge.

Although trusts can be set up at anytime, the best option for most people is to create a trust as part of the will. After all, unless you have a lot of property and assets, while you are still living you can probably administer your financial affairs yourself. Although there can be tax advantages to setting up a trust to work while you are still alive, most people do not have enough assets to make this option viable and it is simply not worth the expense.

A trust as part of a Will can help protect your family if anything happens to you. If you have children, you can stipulate that your estate can be held in trust for them until they are old enough to be able to be trusted with financial decisions. That way you will know that they will not blow the lot on a round the world trip or a ritzy pad in London once they hit 18! You can instruct the trust to make regular payments to them but they will not have access to the fund. You can set an age when the fund can be released, based on when you judge that they will be mature enough to look after a lump sum of money.

You can also stipulate where the trust money is to be spent. For example, you can specify that it be used only for educational purposes such as school or university fees, and earmark that the release of further funds will be dependent on gradation or passing exams. A trust fund ensures that the inheritance you leave your children and dependents will remain intact and not at risk from third parties, bad advice and youthful exuberance.

Trusts can enable you to continue to help your descendents after you have gone. By adding a trust to your Will it will help you benefit the next generation. If you do not have children yourself, you can set up a trust fund for someone else, the children of close friends, a charity, a cause you believe in, or anything else that you chose.

However you feel about money, one thing is certain you cannot take it with you! Making a trust will allow you to carry on doing your best for your family or your favourite charity long after your death. If you wish to find out more about Trusts and get some professional advice you can contact the Probate Bureau. If you live in London or the South East, you can meet with an adviser in your own home.

Whilst most people write their Will simply to ensure their family are provided for and to stipulate their funeral wishes, others use it as a way of settling old scores or expressing their beliefs.

Below, we have picked some of the more colourful Last Wills and Testaments to have emerged to highlight just how powerful a Will can be:

1. Famous British singer Dusty Springfield made sure that her cat was extremely well provided for in her Will. Strict instructions stated that he was only to be fed imported baby food and was to be serenaded with her records. It was even arranged that he would ‘marry’ his new guardian’s pet cat.
2. 1960s rock icon Janis Joplin made changes to her Will just 2 days before her death from an overdose on 4^th October 1970. Although the majority of her estate was left to her parents, she set aside $2,500 for an all-night party for 200 friends at her favourite pub so “my friends can all get blasted after I’m gone”.
3. Arizona hermit and miner, James Kidd, went missing in 1949 and was legally declared dead in 1956. His Will was later discovered in 1963 which stipulated that his entire $275,000 estate was to be used to prove the existence of a human soul which leaves the body at death. More than 100 petitions for the inheritance were dismissed by the courts and it was awarded in 1971 to the American Society for Psychical Research. Disappointingly, they failed to prove the existence of a soul.
4. The next Will is that of wealthy tanner John Bowman who outlived both his wife and two daughters. In the final years of his life, he became convinced that on his death his entire family would be reincarnated together. Due to this belief, he provided in his Will for a $50,000 trust fund to pay for the maintenance of his 21 bedroom mansion and mausoleum. Servants were left with instructions to prepare dinner for the family every night in case the family were hungry when they returned from the dead. After his death in 1891 his Will was honoured and the instructions were carried out until the trust fund ran out of money in 1950.
5. Samuel Bratt is one man who used his Will to get even. In life, his wife never allowed him to smoke his favourite cigars. Embittered by this, in his Will he left his £330,000 estate to her, on the condition that she smokes five cigars a day for the rest of her life.
6. In 1841, German poet Heinrich Heine married Eugenie Mirat, a clerk at a Parisian bootshop. In his Will, he left her everything on the condition that she remarry. His explanation for this was that “then there will be at least one man who will regret my death.”
7. American radio personality Jack Benny had been married to his wife Sayde for 48 years when he died the day after Christmas in 1974. The day after his funeral, Sayde received a single, long-stemmed rose from a florist. She then received another the next day, and the day after that. Some people say she phoned the florist and demanded to know where the roses were coming from. However, it’s more likely that she just read his Will. In it Jack set aside money for a rose to be sent to her every day for the rest of her life, she lived another 9 years.
8. The inventor of the Frisbee and sport ‘Disc Golf’, Ed Headrick, often joked to his son that he wanted to live on as a Frisbee after his death. No one took him seriously but he made it clear that he was not joking when he made his Will. After his death in 2002, his body was cremated and the ashes used to make a limited number of ‘memorial flying discs’ which were to be distributed amongst friends and family. Those left over were sold with the proceeds to go towards the creation of a ‘Frisbee and Disc Golf  history and memorabilia museum’.
9. What would you do if you had few friends and no family? Would you leave your estate to charity? Well, Luis Carlos de Noronha Cabral da Camara, a wealthy Portuguese bachelor, decided to be a little more creative. Thirteen years before his death he made a Will leaving his entire estate to 70 strangers he randomly selected from the Lisbon phonebook. When contacted, most of them thought they were being scammed but each of them received several thousand pounds from the estate.
10. Last on our list is British explorer Sir Walter Rayleigh, responsible for the introduction of tobacco in Europe. Aside from making bequests to relatives and charities he also included the following paragraph:

“I wish every smoker in the kingdom to be invited to my funeral in every way possible, by letter, circular and advertisement. Every smoker who takes advantage of the invitation shall receive as a present ten pounds of tobacco, and two pipes on which shall be engraved my name, my crest, and the date of my death. The poor of the neighborhood who accompany my bier shall receive every year on the anniversary of my death a large package of tobacco. I make the condition that all those who assist at my funeral, if they wish to partake of the benefits of my will, must smoke without interruption during the entire ceremony.”

In addition he requested that his coffin be lined with wood from his old Havana cigar boxes, and a package of French and Dutch tobacco be placed at the foot of his coffin. He also asked that a box of matches and his favorite pipe be left at his side.

The Daily Mail recently ran a story about a Sikh family’s dispute over their father’s Will.

Ranjit Singh died in his 70s and left a Will stipulating that almost his entire £870,000 estate be split between his 3 sons; leaving 2 of his daughters with just £40,000 between them. A third daughter was left nothing.

As a result, his daughter Balvinder Kaur Ahluwalia felt aggrieved enough to contest the Will and take the case to court.
One son, Jarnail Singh, argued that the Will reflected Sikh tradition which allows the eldest sons to take the main role within the family and that daughters were provided for through large wedding dowries earlier in life.

However, Mr Singh’s next door neighbour Maurice Grantham who witnessed the Will testified that neither he nor the other witness were present when Mr Singh signed it. This evidence had a strong bearing on the case, as for a Will to be valid, it must be signed by the testator in the presence of two unrelated witnesses.

Due to this technicality, the Will was declared invalid by the court and as a result the estate became an intestacy (this means all six children will now inherit in equal shares).

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2034959/Daughter-overturns-fathers-870k-leaves-vast-estate-brothers.html

It is the duty of the estate administrators to satisfy themselves that all family members have been identified in cases where the deceased died intestate. However, occasionally a family member that other relatives knew nothing about may get in touch after the estate has been distributed.

In these cases they are entitled to their inheritance even if the estate has already been distributed. All the other beneficiaries would be required to pay a portion of their inheritance to the new family member.

For this reason, it is normal practice for the estate administrator to ask beneficiaries to sign an indemnity agreeing that if any further family members come forward they will pay them the applicable portion from their share.  After a period of 10 years, it is unlikely that such a claim would be successful simply due to the amount of time that has passed.

In order to safeguard against issues such as this, it is possible to obtain suitable insurance.

Charlotte Cumbicus-Gunn
Probate Advisor

If you need further help or advice on dealing with estate administration or require more information on Probate or Wills in general, please call The Probate Bureau‘s free helpline on 0800 028 2837