Drawing up s Will
It becomes essential for anyone to organise their belongings like real estate and currency and put down on a legal document to allocate the rights of claiming these by certain people like family or friends after his own death. This legal document that is recognized by law is known as the will. If made in time, a person can prove to have better control over his property and belongings and also can plan his funeral by making a will.
One may want to consider writing a will even when in good health instead of writing a will when he is old and ill. A will helps one to even define what treatment a person would like to have in case he is seriously ill or mentally impaired. Hence it is essential to draw up a will in the right time if one cares about what happens to himself or his property and belongings, how exactly one wants it to be distributed over to family or friends instead of the law taking it over to distribute it which in most cases would not be as per your wishes.
A will sets out who is to benefit from your property and possessions (your estate) after your death. To summarize, the basis of every will are as follows:
- To decide how the assets are shared after death - in the absence of a will, the law says who gets what
- In case of an unmarried couple, in the absence of a will the law might not allocate anything to the partner. This is certainly not what anyone would want to happen.
- In case if one has a divorcee, one can write on a will whether he wants to leave anything to his former partner or not.
- you can make sure you don't pay more Inheritance Tax than necessary- in case according to the will, if one has left estate worth inheritance tax threshold (£325,000 in 2009-10) or more to civil partner who already has current home in the UK, the partner would not be liable to pay for inheritance tax. Also, in case if any estate is handed over to charity, no inheritance tax is applicable.
Unfortunately if someone faces death before making a will, he is said to have died 'intestate'. In such a case, the law takes over and dictates who should deal with the deceased's affairs and who should inherit their estate (property, personal possessions and money). This is valid for England and Wales only.
Usually while dealing with intestate cases, the law assigns someone from the family as an ‘administrator' or ‘executor' who then becomes responsible for not only distributing the estate- money, property and other belongings to the necessary people in the family but also takes over to pay for the deceased person's taxes and debts.
Living will:
Another concept of will is known as the living will which actually specifies the wishes of a person towards any specific medical treatment, in case if he loses mental ability to decide in older age. A living will can either be a legal document or it can also be just a general statement about one's wishes. A general statement is also sometimes called as advance decisions or advance directives and is not legal documents but healthcare practitioners do consider them while deciding treatments.
These usually contain specifications of what treatments one would not like to receive from medical practitioners in case if he loses his mental capacity in future.
Your statement could include:
- Treatment that is acceptable to oneself and under what circumstances.
- Treatment which one is necessary to undergo no matter however ill one is. Here the fact that newer treatments can also come into picture in the future and how willing is open to take these treatments.
- Treatment that one desires not to undergo and under what situation
- Someone you would like to be consulted about your treatment at the time a decision needs to be made.
- It can also include a specific refusal of treatment, which has a different legal stat
Finally this statement needs to be authenticated with the person's name, address, date and signature with a declaration about one's current situation that he is mentally fit to take such decisions as mentioned on the advance statement. All this needs to be also witnessed by preferably two people to authenticate your decision. Hence, the statement should ideally also include witness's signatures with date.
A will should ideally include the following things:
- All estate details- What is the money and what property and possessions one has
- For every possession, who should be assigned to the same
- In case of any children in the family, who should be the guardians for them will they are 18 years of age
- Decision of who can be an executor to handle the will. An executor is generally the person who will actually be in charge of the will to figure out what is assigned to who and then carry out the wishes accordingly. In case if executor is not mentioned on the will, the law decides on who can be assigned for this role.
It is wise to use an attorney to write a will since there are various legal formalities in the procedure of making and validating a will. An attorney has complete knowledge of these areas and can also provide assistance and legal advice for working out inheritance tax and also in other more complicated areas.
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