What Information Do I Need to Make a Will?

Have the full legal names and current addresses ready for yourself, your executors, and everyone you plan to leave a gift to. Using full names avoids confusion later, particularly where relatives share a first name, and an address helps your executors identify the right person and get in touch when the time comes.

If you are including guardians for children, gather the same details for them, and check the spelling of names against passports or other official documents if you are unsure. Small inaccuracies rarely cause serious legal problems, but getting the basics right avoids unnecessary queries.

You do not need an exact valuation, but it helps to have a general idea of what you own: your home and whether you own it outright or with a mortgage, how it is owned if jointly held, savings and investments, any life insurance, pensions, and significant personal items you want to mention specifically.

It is also worth noting any outstanding debts, such as a mortgage or loan, since these are paid from your estate before anyone inherits. If you are unsure how a property is owned, joint tenants or tenants in common, checking this in advance avoids assumptions that turn out to be wrong.

Before you start, think through who you want as executors, ideally at least two people or a mix of a primary and a backup, and confirm they are willing to act. If you have children under 18, decide on a guardian and, again, ask them first.

It also helps to have thought through how you want your estate divided: equally, in specific shares, or with particular gifts to particular people, and what should happen if a beneficiary dies before you, so the fallback plan is decided rather than left to chance.

If you already have a will, note when it was made and where it is stored, since a new will should include a clause revoking earlier wills to avoid any conflict between documents. If your circumstances have changed significantly, such as marriage, divorce, or the birth of a child, since your last will, it is worth reviewing the whole document rather than only the parts that obviously need updating, since marriage in particular automatically revokes an earlier will made before it.

Having the old will to hand, even just to check dates and general content, makes the process of writing the new one smoother and reduces the risk of leaving out something important that the old document covered.

Once you have this information gathered, My Posh Will's guided online process asks for it in a logical order, so you are not trying to remember everything at once. Most people complete their will in around ten minutes, and it costs £69 for an individual will or £89 for mirror wills as a couple, with lifetime access to edit and re-download the document as your circumstances change.

If while answering the questions you find yourself unsure how to deal with a business, overseas assets, or a family situation that feels likely to cause a dispute, that is a good moment to pause and get individual legal advice rather than guessing.