Wills are still a touchy, close-to-taboo subject, and it has to stop. As living creatures, the sad, but brutal truth, is that we all have a limited time to enjoy all that life has to offer.
Before our time is up, we have a moral obligation to ensure our affairs are in order so that our loved ones can carry out our final wishes through a Will.
A Will provides clarity, formality and a legal structure. Without a Will, you have chaos, potentially family arguments, a dramatically extended legal process and payment of unnecessary inheritance tax.
It is estimated that 70% of the UK population doesn’t have a Will, with this number rising to 84% for the 18-34 age range. I think these statistics are core to why there is such a low take-up rate of getting a Will sorted – if you don’t have a Will, you are in the majority. You conform with the masses and, by virtue of this, feel OK as it is socially acceptable.
There are many high-profile people who have died without writing a Will, from the musical legend Jimi Hendrix (the battle for his estate raged on for more than 30 years) to more recently the comic genius Rik Mayall.
Then there is the tragic case of Jade Goody – she was a reality TV star who passed away at the age of 27 from cervical cancer. She had two sons and reportedly earned £2.2m between 2006 and her untimely death in 2009. Her estate was worth in the region of £1.035m, with her hope that this would provide her sons with a good education and a degree of financial security.
Sadly, Jade Goody did not have a Will, which meant that her inheritance bill was in the region of £566k – the news got worse when some business expenses were disallowed by HMRC, and this bill increased to £1.035m, completely wiping out her estate.
This situation is completely preventable through the creation of a Will in conjunction with the use of Trusts.
I am in the process of updating my own Will, which was the inspiration to write this blog. I procrastinated on updating it for months, and now that the appointment is booked, I feel great.
Please don’t read this article and think – yep, I should really get around to it. You won’t anytime soon. You will stay in the 70%. You will make a cup of coffee. You will look at your emails. You will hop onto Facebook – in fact, you will do anything other than take action.
You can start the process here and get looked after by our dental specialist writers. Whilst I would love you to work with us to create your Will, my priority is that you get it sorted from wherever – only then will you have peace of mind.
Andy Acton
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