Be Certain that your Little Ones are Protected

Be Certain that your Little Ones are Protected Former Law Society President Kevin Martin and Chairman of Certainty the UK’s National Will Register advises how to protect your children should the unexpected happen……

Making a Will is crucial for anyone wanting to protect their children from the turmoil that can ensue after they die. Of course, if you don’t make a Will, it isn’t you who lives to regret it. If you have young children, should both parents die it’s left to the courts to decide who they are entrusted to. Until such time as the Court appoints a Guardian, the child can be taken into care. Making a Will appointing guardians for your children is essential so that they can be cared for and receive appropriate provision for financial support according to your wishes. If you have children under the age of 18, you should name at least one Guardian in your Will to care for them in the event of them being left without any parents. You can also name an executor to administer the Will who can also be the Guardian. This executor can be given powers to take care of your estate. A properly drafted Will can provide for all of these.

Normally – and especially where very young children are involved – you would appoint family members as Guardians. Always check with your proposed Guardians in advance to be certain they are willing to act. A Will will also enable a trust to be set-up in such a way that you can define when your children will be able to access the money within the trust fund. With discretionary trusts absolute discretion as to when assets are given out and to whom lies with the trustees.

Without a valid Will, the present rules governing your estate if you die without a Will have little regard for your wishes. Your loved ones may not receive the inheritance that you would wish and you potentially run the risk of depriving your spouse or partner of their home and increasing the inheritance tax (IHT) burden. For your relations and for anyone who is important to you, but not related, it’s substantially easier – and cheaper all round – if you have taken the important step and prepared in advance by writing a Will. Although it can be upsetting to consider what would happen to your child after your death, to make plans for his or her future security is a caring act that any parent would want to ensure.

So we finally get our Will sorted but don’t breathe a sigh of relief just yet. Knowing that your Will can be easily found is equally as important as writing your Will and this means registering it. It’s a fact that two thirds of Britons haven’t made a Will and a third of those that have die and their Will can’t be found. In a recent public survey commissioned by Certainty the UK’s online Will Register, 67% of people surveyed admitted that they didn’t know where their parents’ Wills are located. Your Solicitor can keep your Will stored for you but the final step to completing the process is to have it registered with the UK’s online Will register www.Certainty.co.uk which records the details of the Solicitor’s office where your Will is held. This ensures that when the time comes your Will can be quickly and easily located.

For your own peace of mind, the best advice is to make or review your Will with your solicitor and ask them to register it with Certainty. Only the location of the Will is registered (i.e. the solicitors office where the Will is held) and this information remains private and confidential until you pass on with access granted only then to the next of kin and executors. For those with a Will already in existence, Certainty is giving away 12.8 million free Will registrations to the general public.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 17th, 2008 at 3:21 pm and is filed under Public Relations (PR). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.