Expert Will Writing Solicitors

How do I go about making a will?

The procedure to make a new will with us:

• Let us know that you’d like to make/update your will. One of our advisors will ask you for some basic information, including your contact details, which they’ll pass on to our specialist Wills & Probate solicitors. 
• A member of the team will contact you to answer any immediate questions that you have and to arrange a meeting so that we can get to know you and your individual circumstances. We’ll try to give you an estimate of the cost at this stage, although this will depend on the assets that you have and the complexity of the will that you need. We’ll make things as convenient as possible for you, so our team undertake home or hospital visits where possible, although this may affect the cost.
• Prior to our meeting, we’ll send you our will questionnaire and ask you to fill it in and either return it to us or to bring it with you to the meeting.
• At our meeting, we’ll go through the questionnaire, discuss all the relevant details with you and make sure that we have your instructions for the will. (If someone has brought you to the meeting, we may have to ask them to leave the room while we discuss these issues with you in private). At the end of the meeting, we’ll be able to provide a more accurate estimate of costs. 
• We’ll then send you an engagement letter along with the firm’s terms of business. The engagement letter will set out the work we are doing for you and the anticipated cost. We’ll ask you to sign this and send it back to us. We are required to have the signed engagement letter before we can start preparing your will.
• We will then prepare a draft will, with a letter of explanation of the terms of the will for you to approve, along with an explanation of any other matters relating to the will that were discussed at our meeting. If requested, we may also prepare a letter of wishes for your executors, to be read with the will.
• Subject to any further questions you have or changes you want made to the will, we will prepare a final version for you to sign.
• If possible, we prefer you to come into the office to sign the will, so that we can supervise this and make sure that it’s valid. Otherwise, we can send it to you and explain how it needs to be signed and witnessed.
• We offer a free storage facility for your will when it has been signed and will be happy to send you a copy.
• If you’d like us to, we can register the will with Certainty for a small additional fee. They keep a record of your name and address, the date of your will and where it is. At a later date, this can be helpful for family or friends if they don’t know where your last will is.

The process is usually quite quick, often taking no more than a few weeks. Our specialist solicitors will make it as quick and easy as possible for you.