I met an elderly lady the other day. She asked me what I did and when I told her she very proudly declared that both she and her husband had made wills just a few years ago.
I asked her if she checked them regularly to see if they needed updating in any way. The reply went from bad to worse.
She told me that her husband had died almost a year ago to the day. I offered her my sympathy of course, but she hadn’t finished.
She further told me that after her husband died, they could find his last will and testament. They had put it somewhere safe in their home, but they couldn’t remember where. Many members of their family had searched for it over the next two months but it couldn’t be located.
Therefore, as she now knew, her husband had therefore died intestate – the same as not having a will. This was causing a lot of problems within the family because the estate was quite sizeable (she hinted to over £1 million) and several people thought they should have a share. The only problem with this was the house was worth almost all of the value of the estate with just a handful of thousands in the bank, hardly enough to meet the bills. She was worried she might have to sell up, not to find money to meet the bills, but to pay off distant relatives, having lived there for 52 years.
As there wasn’t a will, she had been forced to go down the letters of administration route, carefully guided by the local authority’s registrar’s office. This has meant long delays and no sign of an outcome yet as those relations ‘not playing ball’ were putting in objections and then late in answering letters. The lady herself thought she was too old to be doing this herself, but wondered about family ‘help’ motivations. She said she owed it to her husband to ensure she did the work herself.
I asked her about her own will. She said it was with her husband’s will!
After pointing out the obvious she’s agreed to have her will written again now and it’ll be kept safely in the company’s safe deposit system. Fireproof, bomb proof and essentially, also water proof.
She’s be able to update it when she wants to if the need arises and she’ll let her family know where it is. If the first one ever comes to light it won’t be valid because the second (new) will will say that the old one is no longer valid. The only worry is that if her first will is found, it probably means her late husband’s will will also be found and that means the letters of administration process may need to be stopped, or if they’ve been completed, then they’ll need comparing, but it will be too late to change anything, then.
Filed under: Legal Advice
This is such an important issue. The notion that simply putting the will somewhere safe in the house is good enough is so wrong.
Obviously a householder could be killed in a fire that destroys his will at the same time. I sometimes cringe when I think about my parents will that was left in the airing cupboard. I did scribble on the outside but thankfully not on the text of the will.
Just another thing to beware of - inquisitive kids.