When should I review my Will?
Keeping your Will updated is arguably just as important as ensuring that you have a Will in place. A Will ensures that after death, your estate is administered in accordance with your wishes rather than the laws of intestacy.
However, after making a Will, you should not treat this as the end of the road in relation to setting your affairs in order.
Below, I set out just a few of the scenarios that serve as prompts for updating your Will in order to ensure that this important document continues to be an accurate reflection of your wishes:
Marriage/Civil Partnership
Whilst a honeymoon may be the first item on the agenda after getting married or entering into a civil partnership (and who can blame you?), it is also important to review any Will that you may have had in place prior to marriage/civil partnership. This is because marriage/civil partnership invalidates any Will that you currently have in place unless the Will was made in contemplation of the marriage/civil partnership. In this case, the Will would specifically need to state that the impending marriage/civil partnership will not revoke the Will. Therefore, after marriage or a civil partnership, it is strongly recommended that a new Will is prepared to ensure that it reflects one’s current wishes as well as to prevent one’s Estate being distributed via intestacy laws or the Estate being disputed following one’s death.
Divorce
On the other hand, if you have been through a divorce, this invalidates any gifts made to your former spouse/civil partner within your Will. The former spouse/civil partner is treated as if they predeceased you. Therefore, any gifts made to them will fail. To ensure that your Will still gifts your estate in accordance with your current wishes, it is important to review your Will after divorce.
A further consequence of divorce is that the wording of your Will may also need to be examined. For example, if gifts were made to one’s ‘in-laws’ whilst one was married, if the Will remains unchanged following divorce, the in-laws would still receive the gift specified in the Will and, as a result, these in-laws may become unintended beneficiaries of your estate.
Death of individuals within your Will
A further prompt for reviewing and updating one’s Will is where beneficiaries (those who benefit from your Estate) or Executors (those who are appointed to administer your Estate) have predeceased you.
If left unreviewed, and if there are no substitute Executors appointed in the Will, a residuary beneficiary who may not have the requisite experience and ability to manage your Estate, would, by default, become entitled to take on the role of administering your Estate. In addition, the change of an Executor’s personal circumstances or their unwillingness to act may also necessitate the review and updating of one’s Will.
Furthermore, intestacies could arise where a sole beneficiary is named in the Will that contains no substitution provisions. A review should, therefore, be undertaken upon the death of a beneficiary or beneficiaries named in the Will and on a regular basis to ensure that substitution provisions contained in the Will in the event of the death of a beneficiary reflects your current wishes.
Substantial changes to your assets
Over time, one’s assets may increase or reduce in size and value which may necessitate the review of a Will. For example, if you purchase property, you may wish to gift the property as a specific legacy in the Will to individuals that are separate from those that will inherit your residuary estate. Furthermore, if your assets increase significantly in value, this may alter how you wish to structure your Will against the background of Inheritance Tax provisions.
Changes to government policy
In our article ‘The Autumn Budget 2024, What it Means for You: Wills Trusts, & Probate’, we highlighted changes to Agricultural Property Relief which are to take effect from April 2026. These changes entail that Inheritance Tax will now apply to assets that qualify for the relief once qualifying assets exceed a threshold of £1m. This, in turn, may affect how you intend to gift these assets on your death. Thought would therefore need to be given to the contents of your Will in light of this new government policy and indeed everchanging policies that affect tax planning, pensions, Trusts etc.
Owing to the rapidly changing political landscape, it is generally recommended that a review of your Will is undertaken every three to five years.
Conclusion
As we all know, life is full of changes, some of which may occur without prior warning. Therefore, the importance of having a Will in place cannot be underestimated, nor can the importance of ensuring that your Will is kept updated. Whilst the above are only but a few of some of the prompts for Will reviews, one should always be mindful of making sure that your Will reflects your current wishes.
If you believe that any of the above scenarios may apply to you, or if you would like to discuss the preparation of Wills generally, then please do not hesitate to contact the Leathes Prior Wills, Trusts, and Probate Team via info@leathesprior.co.uk or call us on 01603 610911.