Checklist: Before You Sign

Have you included or considered the following matters?

The date the will is made.
Your full names (including any alias or nicknames in which you have property) and your status or occupation and address.
The executor's full names and status or occupation and address.
Have you included a co-executor or an alternative executor and his full names and status or occupation and address in case your first choice dies before you?
Are you contemplating marriage to a particular person in the near future or entering into a registered civil partnership?
Have you set out in your will or in an accompanying letter any burial/cremation/funeral wishes about which you feel strongly?
Have you checked whether any property you own with another person is owned as beneficial joint tenants or tenants in common and remembered that any land or property of which you are a beneficial joint tenant cannot be left in your will and will pass to your co-owner on your death unless you sever the joint tenancy? If there is any jointly owned property in respect of which you are a beneficial joint tenant and which you wish to leave by your will, you should sever the beneficial joint tenancy and create a tenancy in common in your lifetime. You cannot sever it by your will.
Are any pecuniary legacies you have left to bear their share of inheritance tax or is the tax on them to be paid out of the residuary estate?
Are any gifts of specific articles you are leaving to bear their share of inheritance tax or is the tax on them to be paid out of the residuary estate?
What is to happen to the residue of your estate, or the share of the residuary estate as the case might be, if the beneficiary dies before you?
Do you wish to make any of your bequests contingent upon the happening of any event, for example contingent upon survival by a specified period or the attainment of a specified age?
Do you wish your executors to have power, in their discretion, to use money from a bequest or from the income it produces for the benefit of beneficiaries whose gift is contingent upon the happening of any event (for example contingent upon survival by a specified period or the attainment of a specified age) before the event has occurred?
Have you stated who is to be entitled to give your executors a valid receipt and discharge for any gift to a charity or to an under age beneficiary?
If you are a father and were not married to any of your children's mothers at the time of the child's birth, has a parental responsibility agreement been completed and registered or does one need to be registered or completed?
If you are a father and were not married to any of your children's mothers at the time of the child's birth, do you need to have the child's birth re-registered to show you as the father in the registration particulars?
Have you appointed a guardian for any infant children you might leave and in respect of whom you have parental responsibility? Have you made provision in your will for their maintenance from the estate?
In absence of fraud or gross negligence on their part, are your trustees to be relieved from responsibility for any mistakes they might make?
Do you wish to exclude any excludable statutory provisions?
Do you wish your executors to have additional powers to those always given to them by law, for example power to purchase assets from your estate, or to increase their powers to continue any business you have or to advance movies to contingent beneficiaries or the executors' powers of investment?
Do you wish your executors to receive a legacy or payment for the work they do on behalf of the estate? If so, unless they are professional trustees, you must include a clause in the will expressly authorising payment.
Do you wish to include a clause to the effect that legatees shall receive interest on their legacies calculated from the date of your death instead of the usual rule that they are only entitled to interest calculated from the date of death if the legacies are not paid to them within one year of death? Such interest is, of course, paid out of your residuary estate and at the expense of those to whom you have left your residuary estate.
Have you considered any unusual family circumstances you may have, such as a disabled spouse or children and any beneficiaries with special needs?
Have you made sufficient provision in your will to prevent challenges being made to it under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 as amended and do you wish to leave a statement indicating why you have made no provision or only limited provision for possible claimants?
Have you considered the effect of any previous marriages, civil partnerships and divorce settlements and whether they exclude any claim against your estate? If they do not, consider whether or not you have made reasonable provision for possible claimants e.g. your ex-spouse, by your will.
Have you made it clear whether any legacies are to be paid in addition to or in substitution for any debts you owe to your beneficiaries?
Have you made a will to deal with any property you own which is not in England or Wales and is that will in accordance with the law of the relevant state in which the property is situated, both as to the formalities for making the will and the substantive law of that country?
Do you need to say in your will in what state you consider yourself to be domiciled?
Is it appropriate to state in the will whether it is a mirror will or mutual will?
Have the trustees of any pension scheme of which you are a member been notified of the way in which you wish them to exercise any discretion they may have in relation to any potential benefits arising from your membership?
If you have, or might have, under age children, have you dealt with guardianship in your will and made provision for maintenance of the children by the guardian?
Have you considered the effect of inheritance tax on your estate? Could your will be made more tax efficient and still carry out your wishes? Have you considered making nil rate band gifts, the needs of your surviving spouse and the assets and income which she has in her own right, whether
or not a survivorship clause should be included in the will, what are the needs of the individual beneficiaries and should a generation be skipped?
Have you included in your will everyone you wish to benefit?
Have you considered what is to happen to any pets you might own at your death and included the appropriate provisions in your will?