Families are risking their loved ones losing their inheritance due to mistaken beliefs about wills, according to a study by Remember a Charity.
The Remember a Charity found 68% of UK adults have not made a will – equivalent to 45.5million people.
And a third of people assume their partner and children will automatically inherit, in reality, without a will in place you are leaving your final wishes at the mercy of Britain’s intestacy rules.
So, what are the intestacy rules, sometimes known as your ‘Government Will’.
First in the pecking order is your spouse or civil partner. Then your children, followed by your parents, brothers or sisters, and then more distant relatives. It’s important to note that a surviving partner who wasn’t married or in a civil partnership does not have an automatic right to inherit and neither does a spouse’s family, however close you may have been to them.
If none of these people exist or they can’t be traced, your estate passes to The Crown. This is known as bona vacantia, loosely translated from Latin as ‘ownerless property’.
Don’t leave your ‘Government Will’ to decide to whom and how your estate is passed on.
BOOK A FREE CONSULTATION with one of our Will Writing experts today, so you can relax knowing that your most valued assets are passed on to the right people when you’re no longer there to make sure they are.