Intestacy
If you die without making a Will your estate will not necessarily pass on to whom you want.
If you die without making a Will your estate will not necessarily pass on to whom you want.
Wills are not just for passing on your estate. They can be used for Inheritance Tax planning, appointing Guardians for children, passing on businesses, protecting assets from care costs etc.
Steps can be taken to protect assets from being sold to pay for long term care fees.
If you have mental incapacity no one (including spouses and close family) has automatic rights to take over your affairs.
If you are a owner of a business will it continue after your death?
How do you reduce the impact of inheritance tax?
Do you and your family know where your Wills are kept?
Do you need help in administering an estate?
Wills must be kept somewhere safe and secure so that they can be found when the time comes for them to be used.
If a Will is lost or destroyed then it may just as well never have been written and you will die intestate. Copies on their own have no legal standing, although it may be possible to use a copy – but this will entails a costly, and possibly lengthy, process through the courts.
The one way to ensure that your Will can be found is to put it into safe storage. Moneta Document Storage Ltd provides this service. We use a commercial media storage facility for document storage in East London.
For a small annual fee (payable by standing order) all your paper documents (not just your Will) can be safely stored. You will receive a safe custody certificate, detailing what is being stored and how to retrieve it (at no extra cost). You can have as many copies of this certificate as you need, so that you can inform everyone who needs to know where your documents are.
Please contact me for further information