Should I Tell My Executor Where My Will Is?

If your executor cannot locate your will after your death, they, or your family, will typically need to search likely locations: your home, any solicitor you may have used, will storage services, and sometimes banks. This process can take weeks and cause real distress at an already difficult time, on top of the practical delay to dealing with your estate.

If a will genuinely cannot be found after reasonable searches, the estate may end up being administered as if you had died without a will at all, under the intestacy rules, which follow a fixed order of relatives and may bear no resemblance to what you actually wanted. This is an entirely avoidable outcome if the will's location is simply known in advance.

Common storage options include keeping the original at home in a fire-resistant document box or safe, storing it with the solicitor or will writing service that helped prepare it, using a dedicated will storage service, or keeping it in a safe deposit box at a bank. Each has advantages: home storage is free and immediately accessible, while professional storage offers protection against fire, flood or loss at home.

Wherever you choose, the storage decision is only half the job. The other half is making sure at least one person you trust, ideally your executor, knows exactly where that location is and how to access it when the time comes.

Your executor does not necessarily need to read your will in advance, but they do need enough practical information to retrieve it without difficulty after your death. This is a straightforward, low-effort step that removes one of the most common sources of delay in estate administration.

Telling your executor where your will is kept does not require you to explain what it says. You can simply say, for example, that your will is held with a particular firm of solicitors, or stored in a specific safe at home, along with instructions for access, without discussing who inherits what or any other detail you would rather keep private until after your death.

This approach respects your privacy during your lifetime while still ensuring the practical information your executor needs is available exactly when it becomes relevant.

It is worth telling more than one person where your will is stored, in case your named executor is unavailable, predeceases you, or simply forgets the details over time, particularly if many years pass between making the will and your death. A trusted family member, a solicitor, or a professional storage service that can be contacted independently all provide useful backup routes.

Review this information periodically, especially after making a new will, moving house, or changing solicitors, so that whoever needs to find your will is always working from accurate, current details rather than information that has since become out of date.