As a responsible, caring parent, you often take precautions to protect your children even when the chances of something bad happening are quite small. Do you bother strapping your child into a safety seat in the car? Do you care if your partner or spouse wears a seatbelt? You would do anything to protect your loved ones, yet you may have overlooked one of the most important things you can do to guard their quality of life and happiness. Making a professional Will is simple and affordable, and it will give you peace of mind that your family will be looked after no matter what life throws at them.

Is Making a Will Worth the ‘Hassle’?

If ‘immortality’ is secretly written on your bucket list, it’s time to cross it out! We won’t live forever, and exactly when our time will be up is impossible to know, but you can take action now that will benefit the lives of your loved ones well after you’re gone.

Making a Will can affect your partner or spouse’s future and whether or not they’ll be able to raise your children properly, if at all. It can also ensure your children are looked after financially and emotionally, and prevent the loving bonds which make up your family from being torn apart after you’re gone.

Without a Will, intestacy laws and social services will decide how your estate is shared and who’ll look after your children. If you were to be taken from your family sooner than planned, the last thing you’d want is for the loving relationships you’ve worked so hard to nurture getting damaged by financial disputes, guardianship issues, and disagreements with the law.

Your family is your legacy, and you can protect your legacy with a professional Will.

What Could Happen if You Don’t Make a Will?

Whether you’re married or not, and whether you own a home or not – if you have children you should make a Will.

If you don’t, there are many unwanted scenarios that could play out. Here’s a couple that happen all too often, simply because young parents never got around to making a Will. 

Scenario 1. You’re married or in a civil partnership, with children, with an estate worth up to £270,000. If your time on this wonderful planet is unfortunately cut short, your entire estate will legally transfer to your spouse but nothing goes to your children. That sounds ok, they’ll get it eventually won’t they? Not always. What happens if your spouse remarries? Now, a large portion of your estate is legally owned by someone you never even met and your children still don’t own any of it. And depending on the new family dynamic – they may never do. In fact, if the new spouse has kids of their own, your inheritance could end up funding their futures instead of your own children’s!

Scenario 2. You’re not married or in a civil partnership, but you have a loving partner of many years and together you’re bringing up children. If you die, your entire estate will pass straight to your children. Your partner will be left with none of it, even though they have now got to bring up your children on their own. This can get very messy in the long run, in fact, parents have had to sue their own children just to get a fair share of inheritance on which to survive – causing families to fall apart long after the death of a parent, who could have protected the sad fate of their family by making a Will.

Choosing a Guardian for Your Children

Aside from how your estate is shared, not making a Will can also affect who will bring up your children if something was to happen to you and your partner. It’s incredibly surreal and painful to imagine your little-ones being raised by someone else, but the reality is that it could happen, and you owe it to your children to make sure their futures are in the safest of hands no matter what.

Without a Will, the decision falls to social services. The problem is, social services don’t know your family and friends like you do and can’t possibly make as good a decision as you can. You’ll also have the opportunity to discuss this with your chosen guardian(s) when making your Will, to ensure they are prepared and willing to take on such a huge responsibility. We can’t stress the importance of this enough. If something was to happen to you and your partner, the weeks and months following the incident will have a profound effect on your children. Ensuring a smooth transition into a new loving home, with people they know and trust, will give them the best possible chance to heal and could shape their entire future.

Choosing a Trustee to Look After Your Children’s Inheritance

When making a Will, you also get to decide who will look after your children’s inheritance until they are 18 years of age – this person is called a ‘trustee’. It’s common to choose more than one trustee in case one of them passes away. Your children may need some financial help before they are 18, so make sure you choose people who are financially responsible to help make those important decisions. You can also stipulate how much control you want the courts to have through this period.

If you believe your children should be older than 18 before they have full control of their inheritance then you can state this in your Will. It’s common for parents to extend the age to 21, because by this age young adults tend to have a clearer outlook on their future and are generally more responsible with their finances.

What to Include in Your Will

A Will provides plenty of opportunities to protect your family and lessen the burden on them if something was to happen to you or your partner. Let’s look at some of the questions you’ll want to provide instructions for in your Will.

• Who will be the legal guardians to your children?

• Who will be legally responsible for your children’s inheritance (their ‘trustees)?

• Who should inherit your assets and what share should each person get? This includes property, cars, savings, investments, and family heirlooms.

• Who will be legally responsible to sort out and distribute your estate according to your Will (your ‘executor’)?

• Do you want to donate any of your estate to charity, and if so, which charities and how much?

• How will any debts, expenses, and taxes be paid?

It’s Time to Act

As touched on earlier, not making a Will can lead to sad and painful situations for your family. It’s the reality of this that inspires us here at Michael Usher Wills & Estate Planning to educate and protect families like yours every day.

No matter how young and healthy you are, if you have children or a partner, you owe it to them to make a professional Will. One that will hold up in court across all scenarios, to protect your loved ones and their inheritance from unwanted claims, intestacy rules, and social services. You can also minimise inheritance tax liabilities by making a Will, so your family can benefit from as much of your estate as possible.

To discuss your Will, call us on the numbers below or book a free consultation here. Together, we can protect your family’s future.