The Main Problems with Basic Wills

The Will sets out how you plan for your estate to be distributed to beneficiaries. Without a will, the estate will be distributed according to the rules of intestacy, which may be in line with your wishes. It is, therefore important to ensure that you have a properly drafted Will to ensure that all your wishes are met.

When you make a will, you decide who inherits your assets. If you don’t the law decides.

• If you evacuate assets over a certain threshold there may be a substantial charge to Inheritance Tax.

• If you own a business or a company, succession planning is vitally important to deal with the ongoing running of the organization as well as future planning and direction. There are also associated capital income tax issues that need to be carefully addressed to ensure the most cost-effective outcome. Estate planning and Will drafting with all these issues in mind is something that Dibbers can advise you on to achieve your objectives and to secure your future and that of the organization going forward.
  

Making of a Will is very essential if you want to ensure your money goes where you intend it to after you die. It is also a good way to ensure that your family does not pay more Inheritance Tax than they need to. Although everyone should have a professionally written Will to ensure the right people get their assets when they die there arise several significant problems that are a result of using the strategy of just writing a basic will.

The Basic Wills between spouses leave everything to each other on death and then onto any children equally on the second death.

However, they can cause issues to the beneficiaries and can easily be challenged. For – example, if there were children from previous marriages and one of the spouses owned most of the asset before the second marriage. The second spouse can also cut children from a previous marriage out of a Will.

If done properly and you choose the right people the correct people will get the correct assets. However, there is a big problem, there is no protection for these assets and if you pass the money directly through your Will from your estate to beneficiaries, they will have full ownership. This is fine for people with an estate under 100k.

 There are some basic problems with the basic Wills:- 

• Divorce – It is so obvious that half of the money could potentially walk.
• Bankruptcy – Money could go to direct creditors if one of your children or spouse is bankrupt.
• Remarriage – If the spouse remarries then it can disinherit the grandchildren.
• Children/grandchildren inherit too early – Young death of children can leave large amounts 18 year – old grandchildren, which is very dangerous.
• 64% tax – Same amount of money can be taxed twice if going to the grandchild.
  

So instead of setting up a basic Will, you should set up new Wills with lifetime trusts so basically in that Will leaves all your asset to a lifetime trust.

You will need more than one trust depending on the number of children, for tax and flexibility.
For this, do not adjust old Wills. Use the same set of lawyers to do both the law and trust otherwise the there will be problems with legal wording.
Basic Will does nothing to protect the assets distributed for the Will form being attacked the most likely being Inheritance tax.

Basic Wills only direct assets only if they are done properly with correct clauses then only they work.