HELPFUL POINTERS

Catherine Elliot, solicitor and partner at Elliot & Company in Perth, advises on making and maintaining a Will

“If you have a Will, about every three years go over it at home and firstly say: “Right, who has moved?” That is an easy first step. You then need to consider what else has changed and if the substance of the Will needs to be updated. It maybe that you only require to update your lawyer with new addresses. You wouldn’t necessarily need to update the Will in its entirety, this just keeps it fresh.

During your life, the likelihood is that you have accumulated assets. You are likely to have a house and money in the bank and, if you do, then not having a Will will cause your family work. If you die intestate (without a Will) with the aforementioned assets in your estate then your next of kin will have to go to court to be appointed Executor Dative.

The average person, understandably, won’t know what they can and can’t do from a legal point of view, so if someone tries to draft their own Will they can end up causing an enormous amount of work, money and effort to be spent having to sort it out. This is not at all what would be envisaged when they had just quietly tried to do it in the background.

Many people kindly make regular donations to charities and many making a Will will consider how they can look after their family, partner and children, but also benefit those charities, who they know need their help. Many who benefit from the support of charities when they or their loved ones have been ill, feel terribly grateful, and when they are making their Will they are very careful to make sure they have left something in the right direction.