It’s a fact that nearly half of the UK population have not made a Will, and if you have children under the age of 18, read on!
Each year, the National Wills Register releases a report, having conducted research during September, into how many of the population have a Will, where that Will is kept, and how they have communicated with their loved ones about what should happen upon their death.
Its not about where the money is going, (of course that matters ) but if you have young children and you are wanting them to go to a family member, if that’s not specified in your Will that they are the named guardian, the children will go into the care of the local authority and none of your family can do anything about that!
Please don’t think I am scaremongering, I had this exact experience a couple of years ago when I was contacted by a young couple with little ones under 5, they didn’t get their Will started before they went away, leaving the children with their parents and sadly they were killed on the way back from Gatwick. The children initially stayed with the grandparents, which was the wishes of the family, but this was not in writing and so when their local authority found out, the children were removed, as the parents were deemed too old to look after them. It took the grandparents 18 months to get partial grandparents’ access but the children have never returned to live with them.
So, what do you need to do once you start a conversation about getting a Will in place?
Take time to talk to your loved ones and establish who should have guardian rights, and if you are going to choose your parents, then make sure you have a reserve guardian in place. I will talk in another post about Family Income Planning, dependent upon the financial situations the guardians face, this might make the difference between them surviving financially or not post your death.
I often find that people are fearful of having the discussion about making a Will feeling like it will jinx them, but I cant stress enough, it is the exact opposite, once you have that Will in place, you will feel a sense of security, you will know that if anything ever happened all your wishes for your children will be carried out.
If you already have a Will in place and you are worried you haven’t included Guardian rights for your children, I can provide a free Will review just drop me an email.
