Wills and Probate | Certainty UK Will Register Blog

Interesting things in the news recently….

Will Aid and the Certainty National Will Register are to join forces permanently following a successful trial during last year’s Will Aid campaign. Certainty provided free will registration to 3,500 people during the campaign, which saw 12,000 people visit solicitors to make a will. Lawyers waived their fees in return for a suggested donation to the Will Aid charity.

For more information, read about contingency fee advice.

Paul Hewitt, a partner at the leading law firm Withers, said that under a recent change in the law, the court dealing with those who cannot decide to whom they should leave their money must decide what would be in their “best interests”.

As part of this, judges assume that the person in question would want to be remembered fondly by their family and as having “done the right thing in their will”. This means that estates are often disposed of in favour of friends or relatives, under “statutory wills”, even if they have only recently come into the life of a vulnerable person. Under English law, people have long had the right to make “eccentric” wills and do not have to explain why, for instance, they chose to disinherit their children. But courts can make a “statutory will” when someone lacks capacity to do so, usually if they never made one or if there has been a significant change in their family or fortune since they made a valid will but they can no longer make a new one.

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