Every day, Warwickshire & Northamptonshire Air Ambulance (WNAA) critical care paramedics, doctors & pilots respond to around ten emergency missions. They land fast at the scene of road traffic collisions, falls at home, strokes, cardiac arrests, sports injuries & industrial incidents. Wherever they’re needed. Whatever the call. They also operate the region’s critical care cars.

Surprisingly, they don’t get a penny from the government or the National Lottery for their daily missions. Each mission costs £2,300 & every pound comes from donations.

Our private client team see many of our Will clients wishing to leave a legacy donation in their Will to both local & national charities. Gifts in Wills are vital for most charities. Despite this, a good many people aren’t even aware of this form of giving.

If this is something you are thinking of & you require Will services, then please get in touch with one of our highly experienced & friendly team.

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Upon looking further into these adverts, many of these companies that offer “Local Will Writing for Coventry Residents” for example, are not local at all – in fact one of the companies we found were actually based in Gibraltar!

As a firm of solicitors, you would expect us to advise you to use us to write your Will…. And that is true – but we explain our reasonings for this below.

What is the difference between Will writing companies and Solicitors?

The main difference between Will writing companies and solicitors is that anyone can become a Will writer – many aspects of planning are non-regulated, meaning anyone can write a Will, regardless of training or expertise – whereas Solicitors are regulated and have to adhere to strict codes of conduct. It is unlikely that Will writers are fully legally qualified, but if they’re a member of a recognised trade body, they have at least been trained in Wills and estate planning.

An experienced Solicitor or Chartered Legal Executive undergoes years of study, training and practice to assist clients, they will firstly obtain a full understanding of your family dynamics and financial circumstances, and with this insight will then offer tailored Will advice as to the type of Will – be it basic or more complicated – that meets your needs and does so in the most tax-efficient way. They will also oversee the signing and witnessing of your Will to make sure that the process is properly carried out and can advise on additional services to complement a Will, such as a Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) or Trusts. They have also good professional relationships with other local professionals such as financial advisors if required.

Solicitors firms are members of The Law Society and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA). The SRA regulate all solicitors and most law firms in England and Wales. They protect and help the public by making sure solicitors and law firms meet their high standards, they take action against solicitors who don’t follow their rules – for instance, by taking someone’s money or acting dishonestly and people can get their documents and money back, if, for example, a law firm shuts down suddenly. If an issue were to arise regarding the validity of your Will, you have the security of the regulation authorities, alongside this, solicitors are required by law to have adequate professional indemnity insurance.

Members of our team have STEP accreditation – STEP members are internationally recognised as experts in their field, with proven qualifications and experience. As specialists in inheritance and succession planning, STEP members draft Wills and trusts, administer estates, act as trustees and advise families on how best to structure their finances to ensure compliance and best preserve their assets for future generations.

What is more, we work in partnership with Certainty the National Will Register. This allows us to register your Will, which is included in our fee, as well as Will search and Will Management services.

DIY Wills

You may have also seen that you can purchase ‘DIY Wills’ online or even from shops. Are they legally binding? It depends! The validity of a Will depends on certain requirements being met, including that the person making the Will has adequate mental capacity to make it in the first place. A simple mistake in the drafting of a Will can potentially render it invalid.

DIY Wills can cause many problems even if they are perfectly valid and appear relatively simple. They can become outdated very quickly without professional advice and future planning, and are often made without taking into account important factors that a trained professional would identify.

Depending on you and your beneficiaries’ circumstances, a very basic DIY Will could end up costing a great deal of money to your beneficiaries once you have passed, sometimes in the hundreds of thousands of pounds. The law about inheritances and how they are taxed can be complex and things might change between when you write your will and when you die. That makes it risky to write your own Will without professional advice.

Charity Wills

We are all for leaving a charity donation in your Will, in fact it can even help with reducing inheritance tax bills. We regularly draft Wills for clients that include donations to charities, and we also take part in ‘Will weeks’ for local charities. However, charity Wills tend to only suit those needing very basic Wills. If your Will is considered to be more complex, such as involving high-value assets, inheritance tax planning, blended families, or business ownership, going directly to a solicitors’ firm is the best option to provide tailored advice to benefit both yourself and your beneficiaries in the future.

To summarise

In summary, a professional service will ensure your Will does what you want it to do. Free online or cheap Wills are not up to ensuring your wishes are respected and may well trigger a legal battle between loved ones. Getting a professional Will written can lead to peace of mind about your money going to the right people cost effectively. At BTTJ, our aim, quite simply is to make sure that you have a properly drafted Will in place and with it, peace of mind knowing that on your death, your estate will pass to your intended beneficiaries. As the saying goes… you get what you pay for!

If you require Will services, then please get in touch with one of our highly experienced and friendly team.  Our Will specialists will take the time to understand your individual circumstances and will provide you with tailored advice.

Unlike the cheap Will writing adverts we have seen; we are truly local! We have offices in Coventry, Warwick, Balsall Common and Southam and our lawyers work across the whole of the Coventry and Warwickshire region. We can trace our beginnings back to 1797 and since then, we’ve not stopped developing great relationships with our clients.

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Lead Solicitor Helen Strong, says many people think digital assets are just NFTs and cryptocurrency.

“During the initial stages of putting a Will together we ask about digital assets and most people wave us on saying they don’t have any, thinking they don’t need to worry about them.

However, the truth is far more complicated because virtually all of us have an extensive digital footprint that must be taken into account.   Professionals and business owners may have business-critical access to data, such as information held in an email account or a password-protected database, document, or trading account.

It therefore may be wise to nominate a digital executor or manager who can access and manage your digital assets after your passing. You may also wish for a beneficiary to have access to social media accounts, subscription services, and online shopping accounts.”

Helen recommends leaving a list of passwords and usernames in a secure place for the executors – and ensure you tell your executors where to find it – as access issues can cause serious problems and delays. She also advises you to regularly backup your digital assets to the cloud and/or a portable storage device.

If you own cryptocurrency, be careful to leave instructions and security data for your cryptocurrency wallet.

“We have all seen the news stories of people who have lost log-in data or personal electronics that held valuable Bitcoin and have no proof of ownership or way of accessing it. Don’t let that happen to your beneficiaries.

Then there are more personal access issues, such as photos stored digitally on the cloud and whether social media accounts are shut down or memorialised.

Coping with death is hard enough as it is for trustees and your loved ones, and incorporating digital assets into your post-death planning will remove a potentially upsetting complication or barrier to the estate administration.”

If you require Will services, then please get in touch with one of our highly experienced and friendly team.  

Our Will specialists will take the time to understand your individual circumstances and will provide you with tailored advice.

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The call comes at a time when, according to the National Wills Report 2024, only 57% of men and 50% of women have written a Will.

With the first month of 2025 out of the way, getting a professional Will written can lead to peace of mind about your money going to the right people cost-effectively.

A Will ensures that all of your wishes are implemented, and streamlines the succession process for your family and friends – an important consideration as they struggle with grief.

The absence of a Will could lead to a distribution of assets that go against your wishes and may incur unnecessary inheritance tax.

A Will is vital at all ages, with younger people often gaining significant assets earlier in their careers than in the past. Younger people are also more likely to have more diverse assets and complicated family structures.

A well-written Will can take into account the effect a lump sum may have on beneficiaries that are on state benefits, and implement measures to mitigate them, such as putting a trust in place. It can also incorporate divorces and separations, children from other relationships, care and medical issues, tax, and help protect inherited family wealth, which is particularly important when accounting for changes to inheritance tax law.

The absence of a Will may lead to an unwelcome distribution of assets. Under UK law, the state decides who your estate must go to, this could be someone you did not want it to go to, whilst a loved one you intended to benefit ends up with nothing.

A professional service will ensure the Will does what you want it to do. Free online or cheap Wills are not up to ensuring your wishes are respected and may well trigger a legal battle between loved ones.

It may feel a bit morbid, but it is important to think of your Will as if you’re going to die tomorrow.

If you require Will services, then please get in touch with one of our highly experienced and friendly team.  Our Will specialists will take the time to understand your individual circumstances and will provide you with tailored advice. We have offices in Coventry, Warwick, Southam and Balsall Common and our solicitors work across the whole of the Coventry and Warwickshire region and beyond.

Article written by Lead Solicitor in our Private Client department, Helen Strong.

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Jaz Virk, Solicitor and Head of our Private Client team says:

“We’re delighted to be part of this year’s Remember A Charity Week.

We know that leaving a gift in this way can not only be an important way of supporting good causes, but it’s such a rewarding way for our clients to give back.”

Offering generous tax incentives, this form of charitable giving is on the rise, and provides essential funding for vital services across the country – both now and for future generations. In fact, around £3 in every £10 donated to charity comes through gifts in Wills. Within the current economic climate, these donations make a huge difference and really have become crucial for thousands of charities and community organisations. In fact, some of the nation’s most loved charities simply wouldn’t exist without such gifts.

Thanks to the generous acts of everyday people, the UK ‘Willanthropy’ movement continues to grow – with around 100 people a day across the UK now choosing to leave a gift to charity in their Will. By working together with Remember A Charity, BTTJ hopes to inspire even more clients to consider what they wish to be remembered for.

Remember A Charity Week (9-15 September 2024) is an annual celebration of the power and impact of legacy giving. Throughout the week, campaign partners, solicitors, Will-writers, charities and others will be championing the legacy message, encouraging people across the country to help build a brighter future by leaving a gift in their Will.

If you’ve not got round to the important task of making your Will yet, or have an existing Will which needs updating, please contact our friendly Private Client Team, with offices in Coventry, Warwick, Balsall Common & Southam we are happy to assist.

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For many couples, the family home is their main asset and protecting it to make sure it passes to the next generation is extremely important. This can be achieved by including a Property Protection Trust in your Will. In this type of arrangement, when one person of a couple passes away, instead of leaving their share in their home to their partner, it passes into the trust set up in a Will.

So how does this work?

In the Will, the surviving partner is given a right to use the half share of the home belonging to the person who has died. This means they can remain living in the property for the rest of their life if they wish to. However, although they have this right they are not seen as owning all of the property. This means that if they did have to go into care, at least one half of the home is protected from being used to pay for care, with the aim of protecting at least 50% of the home to pass to loved ones.

For more information please contact our friendly Private Client team who will be very happy to help.

Article written by Lead Solicitor, Private Client, Helen Strong.

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