How Long Does It Take to Make a Will?

If your estate is straightforward, meaning no business interests, no overseas assets, and no unusual family complications, the actual process of deciding your gifts and generating the document is quick. With a guided online service like My Posh Will, most people complete the whole thing in around ten minutes, because the questions are asked in a logical order and you are only shown what is relevant to your situation.

Using a solicitor for the same straightforward will generally takes longer in calendar time, not because the drafting itself is slow, but because it usually involves booking an initial appointment, waiting for a draft to be prepared and sent back, reviewing it, and booking a further appointment to sign. This can easily take two to four weeks from first enquiry to a signed will, even for something simple.

The time-consuming part for most people is not filling in a form, it is making the decisions: who to appoint as executor, what age children should inherit at, and how to divide gifts fairly. It helps to think these through before you sit down to write the will rather than deciding as you go, which is why gathering information in advance makes such a difference.

Family disagreements or genuine uncertainty about a decision, for example who to appoint as a guardian, can also add delay, but these are decisions worth taking the time to get right rather than rushing.

Once your will is written, it needs to be signed in the presence of two independent witnesses who are both present at the same time and who then sign it themselves. This does not take long to do, but it does need two people who are not beneficiaries or married to a beneficiary, and it needs to happen properly for the will to be valid.

My Posh Will provides clear signing and witnessing instructions with every will, so you know exactly what to do and in what order, which avoids one of the most common reasons a DIY will later turns out to be invalid.

If your estate involves inheritance tax planning, trusts, a business, agricultural property, foreign assets, or a family situation where a dispute seems likely, it will take longer regardless of whether you use a solicitor or an online service, because these situations genuinely need individual legal advice and cannot be safely rushed through a standard template.

In these cases, the time spent getting it right is worthwhile. A poorly considered will in a complex situation can lead to disputes, unexpected tax bills, or a will that does not achieve what you intended, all of which take far longer to sort out after the fact.

For a straightforward will: allow perhaps twenty to thirty minutes total to gather your information, around ten minutes to complete the online questions, and then a short amount of time to arrange two witnesses and sign properly, which can often be done the same day or within a few days.

With My Posh Will, the cost is £69 for an individual will or £89 for mirror wills as a couple, a one-off payment with lifetime access to edit and re-download the document whenever your circumstances change, so there is no need to start again from scratch each time.