What Should You Not Put in a Will?

If you own property or a bank account as joint tenants with someone else, your share passes automatically to the surviving joint owner on your death by the right of survivorship, regardless of what your will says. Writing a gift of that property in your will does not override this, and can cause confusion for your executors trying to work out what you intended.

Similarly, pensions and many life insurance or death-in-service benefits are usually paid according to a separate beneficiary nomination or expression of wish form held by the provider, rather than under the terms of your will. It is worth checking these forms are up to date separately, since your will has no effect on them.

You can attach conditions to gifts, for example requiring a beneficiary to reach a certain age, but conditions that are vague, impossible to verify, or contrary to public policy can fail or be struck out by a court, sometimes leaving the underlying gift to take effect anyway without the condition, and sometimes causing the whole gift to fail depending on the circumstances.

Common problem conditions include requiring a beneficiary to marry, divorce, or practise a particular religion, or conditions that are simply too vague for an executor to judge, such as requiring someone to have 'behaved well'. If you want to influence a beneficiary's behaviour, it is often better achieved through a trust structure with a trustee's discretion than a rigid condition, and this usually needs legal advice.

A will should give your executors clear authority and clear gifts, but it does not need to micromanage every decision. Overly detailed instructions about exactly how to sell a property, in what order to deal with debts, or minute-by-minute funeral arrangements can tie your executors' hands unnecessarily or simply be impractical by the time they are needed.

It is usually better to give executors sensible discretion within a clear framework, and to communicate detailed personal wishes separately, for example through a letter of wishes or a conversation with close family, rather than locking them into the legal document itself.

If you own a business, a farm, agricultural land, or assets in more than one country, these usually need specific clauses and tax planning that a standard will template is not designed to provide. Putting a simple, generic gift of 'my business' into a will without proper advice can create serious tax and practical problems for the people left to sort it out.

The same is true of trusts designed for inheritance tax planning or for protecting assets for a disabled beneficiary. These need to be drafted individually by a solicitor with the right expertise, rather than adapted from a general template.

My Posh Will's online guided service is built for straightforward estates: it asks the right questions in the right order and produces a properly structured will for £69, or £89 for mirror wills as a couple, usually completed in about ten minutes with signing and witnessing instructions included.

If, while answering the questions, you realise your situation involves a business, overseas assets, a likely dispute, or inheritance tax planning, that is a clear sign to take individual legal advice rather than trying to force those complexities into a standard document.