Wills amusing?
I look through YouTube from time to time to see if I can find anything interesting. This is the first time I have found a video about last Wills amusing. It is a little tongue in cheek and, no, generally speaking, video Wills are not valid so you shouldn’t get ideas. However if you want to leave a video message for those left behind there is plenty of opportunity to do that.
Just remember to get your real last Will and testament sorted out properly.
I saw someone a couple of weeks ago who wanted some advice about making sure her Will would cover all her assets. She had the idea that she had to list everything in the Will.
Having spent a while discussing why this was not necessary as dealing with her residuary estate would deal with all these areas we got to talking about her current Will.
She passed me her Will which was a regular DIY Will of the type that probably cost about £10.
It contained so many errors I was very surprised.
She had crossed out her previous address and put in a new one.
She had changed some of the gifts by crossing out items and adding new ones.
She contradicted her gifts by giving everything to a group of people and giving specific gifts to others.
She had recopied half of the will again on the same sheet and finally she told me that the witnesses had come to witness her signature in different days.
She was a very bright person but just could not folow the instructions it seems.
I am as sure as can be that this Will would not be accepted by the Probate Registry.
If there ever was an advert for the benefits of a Will review!
Here is a video from Bloombergs which gives a good overview of why it is important to have a Will. It is for the USA but much of the information is relevant o the UK and common law jurisdictions such as Canada as well.
Find out more about making a will and more at Lawscape
I am really pleased to have been elected as the Chairman of the FSB (Federation of Small Business) for the North and west Wiltshire Branch.
The branch itself has bee inactive for a year and a half but we now have a brand new committee with some good people to promote the FSB and help the mebers in the area.
I am looking forward to getting “stuck in”.
The Wills & Probate directory is a useful resource listing Wills & Probate professionals and some other associated websites worldwide.
There are also listings from bloggers and financial advisors.
On top of that you can submit articles that fit the genre.
Worth a look
This video is by Bill Ryan of Lawscape where he talks about making a Will, appointing guardians and the inheritance problems re-marriage can be cause if care is not taken. Just two minutes long this gives some sound reasosn to review your situation and consider a Will review at the least.
There is in fact a massive variation from free to thousands of pounds. It depends!
If you are talking about standard Wills for a couple with children and standard type provisions a typical solicitor will probably charge between £200 – £500 for the pair, + VAT of course.
You can get DIY Wills from about £5 to £25 from various sources in the high street, the Post Office or from the web.
You can get On-Line Wills from about £50 to £200 from all sorts of providers i.e. Will Writers and Solicitors, and some it seems from people who have no training to speak of but a piece of software to generate the Wills. It is a case of caveat emptor really.
Will Writers typically charge between £125 – £250 for the same sort of Will but this would be a VAT inclusive price.
Clearly there are a lot of choices available a different prices but what else needs to be considered?
See my next post about differnces between Will providers.
yourwillmatters.co.uk/wills-jack-wills-seo/2010
Of course there is a Jack Wills forum and Facebook page and so on – bless him
For those of you living in Dubai UAE this law must be a constant niggle if you rent property or indeed use cheques in any way.
It is a serious criminal offence to write a cheque that bounces. It routinely ends up with a prison sentence for the cheque writer.
A senior Dubai judge has commented that this law can be harsh if a blank cheque was issued as is required when renting property, for example, and there was no intent to write a fraudulent cheque.
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