A steep increase in the number of contested Estates in the past year has been attributed to the rising popularity of DIY Wills.
The Dangers of DIY Wills
While it is technically possible to make a legally valid Will without professional support, this can be a risky approach to take. Wills are official legal documents, which need to contain exact terminology and be written in the correct way. It’s also highly recommended that Wills are written in a way that provides for multiple eventualities, as no one knows what the future will hold.
Drafting a Will yourself, without the necessary experience and expertise, can lead to severe issues in the administration of your estate after you die. When making a DIY Will, it’s all too easy to make a mistake, use ambiguous wording which can be misinterpreted, or invalidate the Will entirely by not having it witnessed in the correct way.
This can ultimately render the Will worthless and also cause stress for your loved ones if disputes arise during the probate process.
Invalidating Your Will or Disinheriting Loved Ones
If you choose to make a Will, then you are obviously conscious of the implications of dying without one and have decided to take steps to avoid your Estate being distributed in the wrong way after you die. However, if your Will isn’t adequately drafted then, your Estate could still be administered in line with the Rules of Intestacy, as though you had died without a Will in place at all.
There are countless instances where this might happen, such as if your Will is proven to be invalid or if all of your named beneficiaries die before you, for example.
Even if your Will is found to be valid, the way that it is written could still result in your Estate not being distributed in the correct way.
Contesting an Estate
If the terms of your Will are not what your family expect, or are not what they would have wanted, they may be trying to prove that it is invalid. A Will can be challenged if it is suspected that the person was making it was acting under the influence of someone else or that they didn’t have capacity to understand the implications of their Will at the time of making it.
At Probate Law Centre, our Will Writers will ask a series of questions at the time of making your Will to confirm with you that this is not the case, and this will be held on record. Therefore a professionally drafted Will with Co-op is more likely to stand up against such a claim than a DIY Will.
Avoiding Disputes after Death
The best way to avoid your Will being contested after you die is to have your Will professionally drafted by a professional Will Writer. This is going to cost more money than making a DIY Will, but if there’s a chance that your DIY Will could be found to be invalid after you die, then writing it at all will have been a waste of your time and money.
A professional Will Writer can draft a legally binding Will on your behalf, setting out your wishes in a clear and transparent way, avoiding any ambiguity and accommodating all possible eventualities.