16 Te Good Life Retirement Planning, Wills & Legacies
Where there’s a Will... I
f you don’t make a Will, you could be leaving your loved ones with an expensive and complicated mess that could
even split your family apart. And yet, half of all adults haven’t written a Will (according to a 2023 survey by insurance company Canada Life). Here are seven reasons that may persuade any doubters to reconsider.
The law will decide Want to ensure your childhood teddy bear ends up in safe hands after you’ve gone? Or that your pet terrapins continue to live the pampered lifestyle to which they’re accustomed? Well, the best way to guarantee this is putting it down in writing in the form of a Will. Don’t assume your possessions, property and savings automatically transfer to your nearest-and-dearest in the event of your death — not leaving a Will could mean the law determines what will happen to your estate (something lawyers call ‘intestacy’).
Don’t make them pay If your estate is worth over £325,000, an inheritance tax of 40% will be charged. Die intestate, and it’ll be your loved ones who’ll likely pick up the tab. However, leave your wealth to a spouse/civil partner, and they won’t need to pay tax on your assets,
ensuring your hard-earned assets don’t end up in the chancellor’s coffers.
Loved ones could be left empty-handed If you’re unmarried or not in a civil partnership and you die without penning a Will, the Treasury is entitled to take your estate, leaving your partner with nothing. Te government can take the lot if you’re single and child-free, too. If you’ve separated from your spouse, update your Will — something Peter Sellers famously failed to do. When the actor died in 1980, most of his £5m fortune went to his estranged fourth wife. His three children were left with just £800 each.
Help your favourite charity Gifts left in Wills are the biggest source of voluntary funding in the UK, worth more than £3.85bn a year, according to charity/bequest analyst Legacy Foresight. Leaving a legacy donation to a charity not only supports some great causes, but it also helps lower the amount of inheritance tax you’d pay on your estate, too.
Don’t forget the digital afterlife You can provide instructions about what happens to your digital data once you’ve kicked the bucket,
Promotional Content • Saturday 2nd March 2024
Making a Will means having difficult discussions about money and contemplating your own mortality, but it could be the most important document you’ll ever write. Words: Christian Koch
whether it’s giving passwords to your family so they can download precious photos from your cloud (or access your cryptocurrency), deactivating social media accounts or even getting a friend to tweet on your behalf from beyond the grave.
Prevent family feuds A valid Will sends a clear signal to your relatives about who gets what; dying interstate could trigger all manner of familial squabbles about who’ll inherit your property, savings and heirlooms. It’s also an opportunity to plan your send-off, so decisions won’t be left to loved ones to decide when they’re in the midst of grieving.
PHOTOGRAPH: GETTY
Think of your children — and pets If you have children under the age of 18, you can appoint the people you’d like to care for them if you pass away. You can also nominate a ‘caretaker’ for your pets, too: Karl Lagerfeld’s cat Choupette picked up $1.5m (£1.1m) from the designer’s Will in 2019, which the fluffy white feline has apparently been spending on Louis Vuitton cat carriers and private jets — as her Insta feed shows.
For more info on writing a Will, head to
gov.uk/make-will
FREE WILLS MONTH
Many of us are discouraged from writing a Will because they believe it’ll be too expensive: 15% of us, according to a recent Canada Life survey. Although you can buy DIY Will kits at your local W H Smith, experts usually advise hiring a solicitor to help (from £200) because one simple mistake in your self-written Will could make it invalid. If you are
over 55, however, it’s possible to have one written for free during this month [March]. Free Wills Month sees a group of charities (Breast Cancer Now, NSPCC and more) get together to help over-55s write simple Wills free of charge. Free Wills Month happens twice a year, in March and October. For more info head to
freewillsmonth.org.uk.
WILL YOU SUPPORT THE FUTURE OF THE ARMED FORCESFAMILY?
By leaving a gift in your Will to SSAFA, the Armed Forces charity, you will build a future where everyone in the Armed Forces and their families gets the respect, support and fair treatment that they need.
Help transform the future lives of those in the Armed Forces family.
Create a simple Will for free, by using one of our Free Will writing services.
TO FIND OUT MORE CONTACT OUR LEGACY TEAM
020 4570 0351
legacy@ssafa.org.uk ssafa.org.uk/gifts-in-wills
SCAN TO REQUEST OUR FREE WILL WRITING PACK
Registered as a charity in England and Wales Number 210760 in Scotland Number SC038056 and in Republic of Ireland Number 20202001. Established 1885.
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