Will Writing Checklist

Before drafting, it helps to have a clear picture of your assets and your family. This includes property, savings and investment accounts, pensions and life insurance (note that these often pass outside the will via a nomination form, so check this separately), and any debts. It also includes the full legal names and addresses of everyone you might want to name, whether as executors, guardians or beneficiaries.

Having this information to hand before you begin avoids gaps, awkward guesses, or having to pause halfway through to track down details.

You will need to decide who should act as your executor or executors, the people responsible for administering your estate, and whether to name more than one in case one is unavailable. If you have children under eighteen, decide who should act as their guardian if both parents die, and discuss this with the people you have in mind beforehand.

You also need to decide who should benefit from your estate and in what shares, whether there are any specific gifts of money, property or personal items you want to leave to particular people, and what should happen to the remainder, known as the residuary estate, once specific gifts are accounted for. It is worth also naming a backup beneficiary in case your main beneficiary dies before you.

Once your will is drafted, read it through carefully to check that names, relationships and gifts are described accurately, that your executors and guardians are named as you intended, and that there are no unresolved gaps, such as a residuary estate that has not been allocated. This is the stage to spot mistakes, since they are much harder to fix once the will has been signed and witnessed.

It is also worth checking that the will has not been accidentally invalidated by anything that has happened since you started, such as an intervening marriage, which would revoke a will made beforehand unless it says otherwise.

For the will to be valid, you must sign it in the presence of two witnesses who are both present at the same time, and neither witness (nor their spouse or civil partner) can be a beneficiary or married to a beneficiary under the will, or they risk losing their gift. Once signed and witnessed correctly, store the original safely, ideally somewhere fireproof and waterproof, and make sure your executors know exactly where it is.

Finally, destroy or clearly mark any earlier will as superseded, and set a reminder to review your new will after any major life change or, in any case, roughly every five years.

If working through this checklist reveals something that goes beyond a straightforward will, such as a business interest, overseas property, or a dependant who cannot manage their own affairs, it is worth booking a solicitor's appointment rather than pressing on alone. Bring the same information gathered above, along with any documents relating to the complicating factor, such as business accounts, overseas property deeds, or details of a trust already in existence.

Arriving with this checklist already completed will usually make the meeting shorter and more productive, since the solicitor can focus on the specific issue that needs professional judgement rather than gathering basic information from scratch.