Andrew East & Kevin Martin speak with Certainty Pt 1
Wednesday, August 27th, 2008
Certainty regularly meet senior legal professionals to discuss the ongoing developments of the register . Kevin Martin, Chairman of Certainty and Andrew East, Chairman STEP UK Probate & Estates Committee recently expressed the following views…
1. Q. Why do you think 66% of the UK’s adult population die without making a will?
A: (Andrew) My own personal view is that inertia is the reason why a lot of people don’t make a will. An awful lot of people don’t want to think about it. The impression that I’ve got over the years is that people somehow think their death is brought a little bit closer by making a will. That is something that is completely illogical and I am here to say that it is completely untrue. But it is a psychological thing that is difficult to get over and I think, certainly my experience suggests, that it takes people quite a long time to get to the point of making a will, and then once they’ve consulted someone it takes a bit more time from there to make the decisions that are necessary to structure the will. So the whole process can be quite drawn out.
(Kevin) Andrew is absolutely right. It is, if you like, a distress purchase. It’s akin to filling in your tax return. You wouldn’t view visiting your solicitor to write your will with great relish, although actually it doesn’t actually have to be a distressing experience. The other thing is that a lot of people when they do think about it have the false impression that it doesn’t make any difference whether they make a will or not. Many of those people, not all of them, are wrong. The analogy I have always given to clients who are in doubt as to whether they should make a will is that its like the difference between buying a suit off the peg or getting one made. If you get it off the peg, same as not making a will and dying intestate, it may work, it may fit, but the chances are that it won’t, whereas if you have the suit made its your personal suit and it will fit you, and if you have a will made its exactly the same, its a personal document that will fit your personal circumstances ideally.
