Making a Will in Your 40s

By your 40s, your estate is often meaningfully different from ten years earlier. You may have paid down a chunk of your mortgage, built up pensions across more than one employer, acquired investments or savings, and perhaps inherited something from an older relative yourself. All of this needs to be reflected in a will that actually matches what you now own, rather than one written when your finances looked much simpler.

This is also the point where some people start to brush up against inheritance tax for the first time, particularly if property values have risen or an inheritance has come in. While detailed tax planning is a separate exercise, a well-structured will is the foundation everything else is built on, and getting it wrong or leaving it out of date can undo careful planning elsewhere.

Second marriages, stepchildren and blended families are common by this stage of life, and this is precisely where intestacy rules and vague wills cause the most conflict. If you remarry and want children from an earlier relationship to inherit alongside or instead of a new spouse, this needs to be spelled out clearly in your will, because the default legal position does not automatically achieve a fair or intended outcome.

Stepchildren, in particular, have no automatic right to inherit under intestacy unless they have been legally adopted, however close the relationship. If you want a stepchild to benefit from your estate, your will is the only way to make sure that happens.

If you divorce during your 40s, it is worth knowing that divorce does not revoke your will in the way marriage does. Instead, once the divorce is finalised, your former spouse is treated as if they had died before you for the purposes of your will, meaning gifts to them and any appointment of them as executor usually fail. This can leave gaps in your will, such as an estate partly falling into intestacy, if you do not update it.

Separation without a formal divorce does not have this effect at all, so an estranged but still legally married spouse could still inherit and act as executor under an old will if nothing is changed. Either way, a separation or divorce is an important moment to review your will rather than assume the legal position matches your actual wishes.

Many people in their 40s find themselves supporting ageing parents, whether emotionally, financially, or by helping manage their affairs. This often prompts a wider conversation about lasting powers of attorney, both for parents and, increasingly, as something to start thinking about for yourself, even though this becomes more pressing in your 50s and beyond.

Seeing a parent's affairs be straightforward, or difficult, because of whether they had a will and clear instructions, is often what finally motivates people to sort out their own. It is a useful, if sobering, reminder of why getting this right matters for your own family too.

If you already have a will from your 20s or 30s, your 40s are a sensible point to check it still reflects your family, your assets and your wishes, particularly if children, a marriage, a divorce or a new partner have entered the picture since it was written. If you have never made one, the combination of more to leave and more complicated relationships makes this the decade to stop putting it off.

An online will at £69 lets you set out clearly and specifically who should inherit what, who should act as executor, and how any blended family arrangements should work, giving your family certainty rather than leaving it to rules that were not designed with your circumstances in mind.