digital assets

Digital assets are items that exist online that may have sentimental or financial value to them. You should typically name a beneficiary for assets that have sentimental value like your photo collection, or your music collection. It is important to avoid a family squabble over family heirlooms even if they only exist digitally. Some online assets have significant financial value like domain names, blogs, advertising revenues. These items should be included in your Will.

How to write a Will without leaving your home – is it possible?

Writing a Will is a task that most people know is important. We know that putting a Will in place saves our family and loved ones from a great deal of anxiety and trouble after you have passed away. There is never a situation where not having a Will is a better plan than having one. But you may be wondering how to write a Will without leaving your home, during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A Will is something that never seems to make it to the top of the ToDo list. In fact, most surveys put the number of UK adults without a Will at about 60-65 percent. Of those that do have a Will, many are not kept up-to-date.

But we are now living in very unusual and uncertain times. During the COVID-19 pandemic an increasing number of people are finally getting Will writing off their To Do list. At LegalWills.co.uk we have seen a dramatic surge over the last 8 months in the number of people preparing their Will.

But although COVID-19 has made people more aware of the importance of writing a Will , it has presented it’s own challenges with tiered lockdowns and family bubbles.

But there has been some changes in the law to help people prepare their Will during a pandemic. So the question remains:

Is it possible to write a Will without leaving your home?

How to write a Will without leaving your home
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Six common estate planning mistakes – getting your Will right.

Six Common Estate Planning Mistakes

Estate planning is a critical part of financial planning, but a task that often never quite makes it to the top of your To Do list. Having your final wishes clearly set out can relieve your loved ones of unnecessary stress and financial burdens. To help you along your estate planning journey we have listed 6 common mistakes that anyone can make when writing a Will.

Estate planning mistakes

Mistake #1: Assuming that Wills are only for the wealthy

According to a recent YouGov survey, nearly two thirds of the British adult population do not have a Will. Continue reading →

Digital assets as part of your estate plan – caring for your online accounts

Digital Assets – What You Really Need to Know

Have you thought about how your digital assets would be dealt with after your death? It is something which you can easily overlook when you are making a Will. It is easy to think about houses you own, bank accounts and personal property. However, digital assets are often overlooked. This can be a huge mistake with serious consequences. Digital asset estate planning has become an essential part of the process of making a Will.

The age of the internet has brought us many things. Online banking, Facebook, eBay, Instagram, Cloud Computing. These are just a few of the many assets of the digital world which were unheard of not so many years ago. We used to make provision for who would get our photo albums when we died, but now we have potentially hundreds of thousands of files in the cloud. It is a whole different world that we live in now.

Digital assets and your Will

Digital asset estate planning is now relevant for most people making a Will. Your digital legacy will live on way past your death. In theory, your digital assets will live forever. It is vitally important that you consider digital asset estate planning when you are making your Will. Continue reading →

Estate Plan – the seven critical documents that you need

You may have heard of the term “estate plan”. Perhaps you know it has something to do with your Last Will and Testament. But what exactly is an estate plan and how do you set one up?

In short, an estate plan is a set of documents that allow you to control your health and financial affairs when you are alive, but unable to handle them yourself, and also take care of your financial affairs after you have passed away. There are five classic documents that form a complete estate plan, but two additional documents that we feel, in 2016, that you should add to round out your plan.

They key word here is “plan”. These documents all allow you to describe what will happen if you are unable to take care of things yourself. You name individuals to take on your responsibilities and provide them with clear instructions on what to do. Which means that you can only prepare these documents when you have full mental capacity. You cannot wait until you no longer have capacity. If this ever happens to you, through illness or accident, it is then too late to prepare any of these documents.

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The Ten Best Reasons to Write a Will now

We know that most people have not written their Will. These people fall into two camps; the group who think it’s important, but haven’t got around to it yet, but hopefully they will write a Will at some time in the future. The second group are those who have the “why do I care? I’ll be dead anyway” approach. Although they’ve hopefully spent their life thinking of other people, they feel content simply letting their family and loved ones sort everything out once they are gone.

Unfortunately, they don’t understand that taking just 20 minutes now, can save their family from distress, acrimony, family feuds, and potentially expensive legal battles.

Surely I’m overstating the impact of not having a Will? Let me explain ten good reasons why you should write a Will today, based on our 15 years of experience in dealing with distraught family members whose loved one died without a Will in place.

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