Leaving a Car in a Will

If you want to leave a particular car to a particular person, describe it well enough to avoid doubt, ideally by make, model and registration number, especially if it is possible you will own more than one vehicle at some point before you die. 'My car' works well enough if you only ever expect to own one car, but becomes ambiguous the moment that changes.

Because most people replace their car from time to time, this is one of the clearest examples of a gift that benefits from being reviewed periodically, or recorded in a memorandum of wishes rather than fixed rigidly in the will itself if you expect to change vehicles more than once before you die.

If you sell, part-exchange or write off the specific car named in your will before you die, the gift will usually adeem, meaning it fails, and the named beneficiary does not automatically receive whatever car you own at your death instead. Courts generally interpret a gift of a named, identified item strictly, rather than assuming you meant 'whatever car I happen to own'.

If your intention is really to give a beneficiary 'my car, whatever it is at the time', it is worth wording the gift that way explicitly, for example 'the car I own at my death' rather than naming a specific registration, so the gift does not fail simply because you have changed vehicles.

Many cars are bought on finance, such as a hire purchase or personal contract purchase agreement, and it is important to think about what happens to that debt when you die. Unless your will says the gift is free of any attached debt, the beneficiary generally takes the car subject to any outstanding finance, meaning they must either pay it off or continue the payments to keep the vehicle.

If you want the beneficiary to receive the car without this burden, you can specify in your will that any outstanding finance on the vehicle should be paid off from the residuary estate before the car passes to them, though this reduces what is left for your other beneficiaries and should be considered as part of your overall estate plan.

Before a beneficiary can use or sell an inherited car, your executors will typically need to notify the DVLA of the death and arrange to transfer the vehicle registration into the beneficiary's name, using the relevant sections of the vehicle registration certificate (V5C). Motor insurance does not automatically transfer, so the beneficiary will need their own policy before driving the car, even if it is legally theirs.

Executors should also check whether road tax needs to be cancelled and reclaimed, or transferred, and whether the vehicle needs to be kept off the public road (a Statutory Off Road Notification) until these matters are sorted out. None of this is complicated, but it takes time, and beneficiaries are sometimes surprised that they cannot simply drive off in an inherited car straight away.

As with other specific gifts, unless the will states otherwise, inheritance tax attributable to the car is usually paid from the residuary estate rather than deducted from the gift, so it is worth confirming this is what you intend in your will's general provisions.

You can also attach reasonable conditions, such as asking that the car only pass to a beneficiary once they hold a valid driving licence, though conditions of this kind should be drafted carefully with professional help so they are workable and do not accidentally invalidate the gift.