In 1977 two very important events took place, the Queen celebrated her Silver Jubilee and David’s grandfather wrote his Will. 16 years ago David’s grandfather died intestate. However David has never given up his quest to find his grandfather’s Will. David comments, “Finding the Will was never about the money. This was all about being able to fill a gap in my knowledge about my Grandad and about who I was and where I came from. With it we could draw a line in the sand. It also helped my brother complete the family tree he’d been working on.”

Faced with a problem his memory couldn’t help him resolve and keen to bring closure to an emotionally trying experience, David contacted certainty.co.uk. He was sceptical about the chances of finding the Will because his grandfather had died 16 years ago. But this scepticism swiftly turned into optimism and hope.

The Certainty search team first checked the Certainty national Will register. This initial search quickly found that David’s grandfather’s Will was not registered. Certainty then performed a ‘Will Search Cover’ which uses cutting-edge technology to connect solicitors around the country and issues a ‘missing wills notification’. Within a very short time, Certainty unearthed the missing Will. David continues, “I thought this was so exciting; really magical. Lo and behold this Will had been in the solicitor’s office for 34 years. Then, suddenly there it was – a piece of my history”.

“This sort of Will search service can be life-changing. It takes something that’s a dry intellectual pursuit and turns it into a human, emotional experience.” Nigel McGinnity, co-founder of Certainty, added: “Sadly, David’s story is all too common. There are many cases of Wills that haven’t been registered and can’t be found. We know this is a big problem
and that’s why Certainty exists.”

Making a will is a lot easier than you think for the majority of us. After all the majority of us when it comes to making a will only have ourselves and our family to think about. There are various ways to make a will. You can make a DIY will or visit an unregulated will writer or use your local solicitor.

After reading various nightmare stories on the first two options, I decided to go down the solicitor route and was pleasantly surprised at the cost as I thought it would be an expensive process but I was totally wrong. I now have all my affairs in order and it cost just under a hundred pounds to make the will.

All I had to do was visit a solicitor who asked me some relatively straight forward questions that were very simple to answer and in a couple of days a copy of the will was forwarded to me and the original was held at the solicitor’s office where I made the will. Making a will turned out to be a simple process and one that has given me great peace of mind and I actually feel relieved that I have now done it as oppose to putting it off.

I think I put if off thinking it was going to bring me a little closer to the grave which I think is what the rest of the population also believe to be true!

Certainty.co.uk make finding wills simple.

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.