Docklands Solicitor

- This fact is certainly played out in the amount of existing Wills we have seen through our Free Audit service.

- Many of the Will we see have not been signed and witnessed correctly - if at all! Only last week I went to write Lasting Powers of Attorney for a couple who asked me to audit their existing Wills made in 2008.

- The Wills were well drafted and contained a relevant Trust to protect their property against 3rd parties such as through remarriage, but the Will writer had not taken the Wills back to supervise the attestation - the most important part of the process - merely posting them back to the couple, and as a result they had not been signed or witnessed at all!

- This couple had paid hundreds of pounds to have comprehensive Wills drafted to protect their loved ones and their assets, but had they died without them being properly signed and witnessed they would have been totally invalid at the time of death!

- Other invalid Wills we have seen have been signed but not witnessed, or only witnessed by one person.

- Worse still, we have seen Wills which have been signed and then witnessed by the spouse and children, a disastrous situation, as any beneficiary of a Will must not be a witness or they lose their inheritance!

Labels: intestate, valid, Will, witness