Online Wills for Couples

A mirror will is not one shared document, it is two separate wills, one for each partner, with matching or very similar terms. Typically each partner leaves their estate to the other first, and sets out the same backup plan, commonly their children, in case the first partner has already died. Because they are separate legal documents, each partner signs their own will with their own two witnesses.

Mirror wills suit most couples well because their wishes genuinely are similar, but the documents do not have to be identical. If you want to leave a specific gift only one of you owns, or name a different executor, a good online service lets you personalise each will while keeping the overall structure matching.

Married couples and civil partners already have some inheritance rights under intestacy law if one of them dies without a will, but these rights are limited and often surprise people. If the estate is above a certain threshold and there are children, the surviving spouse does not automatically inherit everything; the estate is split according to fixed intestacy rules.

A will lets you decide exactly how much goes to your spouse and how much to children or others, rather than leaving it to a statutory formula that may not reflect your wishes. It also lets you name guardians for children and appoint the executor you trust, rather than leaving that to be decided by the rules of intestacy.

Unmarried partners, however long the relationship, have no automatic right to inherit from each other under the intestacy rules that apply if there is no will. Without a will, a surviving partner can be left with nothing from the estate, even if the couple lived together and shared finances for decades, unless they bring a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975, which is stressful, costly and not guaranteed to succeed.

If you are cohabiting and want your partner to inherit anything at all, a will is not optional, it is the only reliable way to secure that outcome. This applies whatever the size of your estate.

How you own your home together matters. If you own as 'joint tenants', your share passes automatically to your partner when you die, regardless of what your will says, because of the right of survivorship. If you own as 'tenants in common', your share is a separate asset that your will can leave to whoever you choose, which may or may not be your partner.

Many couples assume their will controls their home when in fact survivorship already dictates the outcome, or assume survivorship applies when they are actually tenants in common. Check your ownership type with the Land Registry or your original purchase paperwork before assuming either way.

A well-drafted mirror will should address what happens if both partners die together or in quick succession, for example in an accident, known as a 'survivorship clause' setting out what happens if it cannot be determined who died first, and a backup set of beneficiaries, usually children, for that scenario.

This is a detail easy to overlook but important to get right, since without it the outcome depends on general legal presumptions about the order of deaths, known as commorientes, which may not reflect what either of you would have wanted.