Lawyer Monthly Magazine - February 2019 Edition

FEB 2019 34 Expert Insight www. lawyer-monthly .com construction of the will itself. It was eventually resolved but the costs were well over £100,000; what started off was the purchase of a very cheap will for around £20, became a very expensive exercise. I would always recommend instructing a qualified specialist to document your wishes. What do you enjoy most about your role? While 52% believe that law firms and solicitors are the best qualified to prepare a will, the same percentage would be willing to try and prepare an online will themselves if it meant the costs could be kept down 5 . I love working with people and find the field of law very interesting as all cases are different and allow me and handled a number of cases where DIY wills have been used. Parties have tried in those cases to keep matters simple but by using the wrong words, the will can be held to be invalid. The Wills Act also gives very clear rules for guidance on the execution of wills. Having two beneficiaries in the same room is a requirement and there are so many examples where this does not happen and that can create what seems to be a perfectly valid will, invalid. 41% of Millennials are deterred from making a Will because of constantly shifting family circumstances 4 . I dealt with one case years ago where two precedents had been used by a party with little legal knowledge. Unfortunately the terms used did not make sense and it created a dispute between the parties on the As we are more geographically spread out, mainly for work and education, we are not as close as we were to our family members and that lack of closeness makes it somewhat easier to opt for suing or entering a dispute with them. Finally, there are more issues which concern health such as dementia, and as discussed earlier, this can make it easier to challenge a will; we are definitely more litigious as a nation than we were 20 years ago. What are common misconceptions your clients have on contentious trust, which can make your role difficult? There is a misconception that the costs of the dispute will be paid by the estate. This often comes from the parties themselves or from solicitors who do not specialise in this area of law. Whilst that result can be an outcome that the parties agree on and it is an option available to the court, the general rule on costs prevails which is that the losing party has to pay the successful party’s costs. When parties don’t understand this, it can make it difficult to try and work towards a resolution. It is, I believe, always important to understand the personal liability towards costs in a dispute as it is a good focus when considering settlement. The other issue relates to the cohabitee point above, the When you look into the Millennial Generation, only 12% of people aged under 34-years have made a Will 3 . common misconception of a common law wife and status in respect of inheritance. There is no such thing as a common law wife and in my view, cohabitees are very much exposed if they are not protected by a will that provides for them. This will become more prevalent as more people live together now than those who are married. As an expert in this area, what would you say to someone if they were considering the undertaking of a ‘DIY will’? I would strongly advise them to not do this. It takes years to train to be a lawyer to ensure that wills are drafted correctly, and the right technical terms are used throughout. I have