Wills
Making Sure Your Instructions Are Followed
If you do not write a Will, your family must make do with a default version which may also reduce the size of your estate through poor tax planning.
A Will ultimately gives you control. It is the instrument by which your money, real estate, and personal property are distributed after your death.
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In the absence of a Will, the Rules of Intestacy apply. These are imposed by the government and vary from place to place.
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You may think that when you pass away everything automatically passes to your spouse, however in many countries a set amount of your estate will be given to your spouse and put into trust for minor children. Dying intestate may therefore result in assets being distributed unfairly from your estate and leave some family members poorly provided for.
It is a job that many people put on the backburner as it is seen as being too hard and something that we do not like to think about.
But it does not have to be a painful experience. Our job, as experienced Will Writers, is to make the process as relaxed and painless as possible.
Who can you trust?
It is important to take time to think about who you want to put in charge of administering your Will, who should be responsible for your children and what happens if your main beneficiaries die with you.
It can not be overstated how important the appointment of guardians are (click here to read more), especially if the children are small and your family members live in a different country to you.
3 Easy Steps to Completing Your Will:
1
Initial Chat
We would arrange an initial chat either face-to-face or via Zoom where you would provide some basic background information about yourself and your family and we would talk you through what you need to consider.
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After the initial chat, we will send you our "getting started" documents with further details of our services ahead of the instruction meeting.
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2
Instruction Meeting
An "instruction meeting" is where you will meet with one of our Will Writers (again either face-to-face or via Zoom) and they will take your instructions in order to prepare the Wills. They will complete a comprehensive questionnaire and advise on a variety of issues related to estate planning. You do not need any prior knowledge of Wills as all will be clearly explained. Following the instruction meeting, draft Wills are prepared and emailed to you within a week.
3
Sign & Witness
Once you are happy with your Wills, we would have a final check of them internally and prepare them for signing.
The signing part is what makes the Wills valid and binding, so it is best that you come to our office and we will ensure that the Wills are signed and dated in the correct manner.
For our international clients we have a process in place and we will explain this when the time comes.
Wills can then be stored in our safes with annual reminders to ensure they are kept current.
What we DO NOT need from you in order to get started:
You don't need to "finish" buying that property, or decide right away whether to have another child before preparing a Will. You will continue to update these documents as time goes on. With that in mind:
We often do not need to know the value of your assets.
Assets usually do not need to be named specifically.
We do not need to name young children to allow for new additions to your family.
