" . . . "
"The old gentleman died; his will was read, and like almost every other will, gave as much disappointment as pleasure.
Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility (1811)
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I'll Have Some of That, Please
Here's a familiar statistic - about 60 per cent of adults in England and Wales do not have wills when they die.
Here's an unfamiliar statistic, although it follows from the familiar one - the number of people who die in England and Wales every year without wills runs to hundreds of thousands.
And here is an important but incalculable statistic: even if you have a will, there is no guarantee that all will go smoothly after you die. Every year, wills are lost, forged, ignored, or found to be invalid after a costly legal challenge. And more wills than ever before are being challenged.
Store your will in Somerset House? A solid idea. A will-writing firm claimed that its will-storage service used Somerset House. Alas, their depository was a barn in Wincanton, Somerset. This firm flopped, and when another company took over, clients had to pay another fee to get their wills or put them in presumably safe storage. More horror stories.
Photo: Robert Liebman
A will may be completely or partially invalid because it was not signed or witnessed properly, for example, or its language may be ambiguous or confusing. Another major reason: the testator - the person who made the will - was subject to undue influence or didn't understand the will.
Here's one that still catches many people out: a will might be invalid because the testator got married. Marriage invalidates previous wills (unless the will was made recently and refers to the forthcoming marriage). This applies to civil partnerships as well.
Trouble also befalls wills that are legally valid but the executors do not get along with one another or do not want to abide by the terms of the will. And legally valid wills are not necessarily tax efficient - they are, in a word, wasteful.
FINANCIAL PLANNING
After learning that he would soon inherit a fortune when his elderly father died, a young man decided to marry and enjoy his wealth with someone.
Soon he met a beautiful woman.
"I may look ordinary," he said, "but I'll shortly inherit millions." She was impressed, and they exchanged contact details.
Three days later, she became his stepmother.
On the up
Twenty or thirty years ago, challenges to wills were relatively rare. Today, they are common - for good reason!
As a society, we are older and wealthier.
The older we are when we make a new will or change an old one, the more susceptible we are - more accurately, our estate is - to a legal challenge.
When granny changed her will and left everything to her carer (or to a charity she never expressed any interest in, or to any of a number of other unusual beneficiaries) instead of her son and daughter, did she possess all her marbles? Did the carer manipulate or influence her? Did granny truly understand and approve the contents of her will?
Indeed, was her will really her will, and was granny really granny? A few years ago, a middle aged woman dressed up as an old woman and, in that disguise, made a will leaving herself and her relatives a lot of money from the elderly woman's estate.
Less than a month after singer Amy Winehouse was found dead in her flat on 23 July 2011, her family report that letters, a guitar and other items are missing. It is not uncommon, as How We Die reveals, for valuable items to vanish from the premises of the recently departed.
The Way We Live Today
"Probably unsurpassed as a specimen of the 20th-century garden." Lawrence Johnston bequeathed his stunning garden at Hidcote to the National Trust. We dish the dirt on houses and gardens transferred by will in Stately Homes.
A recent case involved a woman who left money to her grandchildren if she 'predeceased' her husband. 'Predecease' is a perfectly good word, and the sentence in which it appears in the will - actually, a codicil - is crystal clear. Alas, she outlived her husband, and although her wishes seemed clear enough, her language was not up to the task.
The woman and her husband had each been married before and each had children with the previous spouse. This family, then, consisted of children, and stepchildren and grandchildren.
There was also a great-grandmother. She was the source of the money that caused all of the legal problems when, in her will, she left her savings to her daughters.
This was a four-generation family that included a matrimonial home and family members who were not related to one another by blood. A costly High Court hearing was needed to resolve the issue.
Many families nowadays are similarly complex. Who gets what is difficult enough to calculate, and how and when they get it complicates things further. Get it wrong and the money you intended for your biological children goes to someone else, and your spouse or partner gets booted out of their home.
Even if you are not old or rich, a will - a well-made will - is a good idea. Most of us have items of sentimental if not material value that we want to pass on to a specific person. A will provides clarity and certainty and, as a result, you (and your estate) stand a better chance of having your treasured items go to the right person.
How to use this site
If you need convincing that having a will is better than not having one, or that a well-made will is better than a weak or flawed one, the misery caused by sloppy will-making is described here.
If you believe, as many do, that a husband or wife automatically inherits everything when a spouse dies, go directly to the Intestate section and prepare yourself for a surprise or three.
How We Die may also open some eyes if you think that nasty things can't happen to a nice family like yours.
If you own a property abroad, you may need more than one will. If you are married or in a civil partnership with someone who was born in a foreign country, inheritance is far from straightforward. Start with the Property, Foreign and Legal sections to see what applies to you.
This site discusses many court cases: brief summaries in Cases, and in more detail in the Famous Cases section. Collectively these cases highlight the main pitfalls awaiting your will.
" . . . "
"The disposition of the family property, even though it be one so small as mine, is, to my thinking, a matter which a man should not make in accordance with his own caprices - or even with his own affections. He owes a duty to those who live on his land, and he owes a duty to his country. And, though it may seem fantastic to say so, I think he owes a duty to those who have been before him, and who have manifestly wished that the property should be continued in the hands of their descendants."
Anthony Trollope, The Way We Live Now (1875)
