Money Matters
The pandemic has encouraged thousands of people to get round to making their wills – but being stuck at home makes it difficult.
How can you comply with the law to have the signature on your will witnessed in person when another law forbids you from meeting anyone outside your household or support bubble? The people you live with are the ones most likely to benefit from your will, which rules them out as witnesses and means you have to find someone further afield.
If everyone signing the will can meet, witnesses can watch from a distance – even through a window – provided they can clearly see the testator (the person making the will) sign. That is often not possible so, to make sure people can write valid wills during the current restrictions, several rules have been changed.
Solicitors dealing with wills are now classified as key workers and, like other
solicitors, are allowed to carry on working and to meet clients in a safe environment. Then the Ministry of Justice granted a temporary concession, lasting until January 2022, allowing wills to be witnessed over a video link such as Zoom or Skype, although it does insist that video witnessing should be done only as a last resort.
The witnesses must still be able to see the testator signing and they must all sign the same piece of paper, so the will has to be sent between them.
Most people use solicitors to draw up their will, but an increasing number are using will-writers who are not legal professionals. Anyone can set up in business calling themselves a will-writer, as will-writing is not a regulated activity.
Solicitors are regulated and this gives clients the protection of complaints procedures and access to the legal ombudsman. If a bank, trade union or charity draws up your will, they might use a solicitor – you need to check. If the will-writer is regulated by the Financial Services Authority, you can take complaints to the financial ombudsman.
Some unauthorised will-writers join a trade association such as the Society of Will Writers or the Institute of Professional Willwriters, which have codes of conduct and offer dispute resolution.
Online wills, which are drafted by a will-writer online and downloaded for you to sign, are being used more and more – and not only because they are cheaper. Many people prefer to write their will at home at their own pace.
With increasingly sophisticated software, drawing up an online will is better than doing it yourself, but this option is suitable only for simple wills.
The danger of a badly-written will is that mistakes come to light usually only after you have died, correcting it will be expensive and your estate might not go where you want.
Anyone over 55 setting up a simple will can do so free of charge through Free Wills Month which takes place in March and October. You contact a solicitor who is participating in the scheme and who is paid a nominal amount by a charity.
The charities taking part hope you will leave them a donation in your will, though this is not compulsory. Some charities run a free will service all year.