If you are married or in a civil partnership, it’s still worth putting the key documents in place even if your family situation is straightforward. The law does not automatically cover the practical decision making if something happens to you and it does not record what you want to happen after you both have gone.

Why it can still get complicated

In most families, the complications come from life events:

• one of you becomes seriously ill or loses mental capacity and the other needs to manage finances, bills, property and life admin

• you have a mortgage and regular commitments that must keep being paid
• you have not chosen executors, so there is no clear person responsible for dealing with the estate
• if you have children under 18 and both parents died, there needs to be clarity about who would care for them
• families often lose time and money after a death because key information is missing or hard to find

What you typically need in place

• Wills for both of you‍
  
  • Sets out who inherits, who deals with the estate and what happens to your assets when you have both died.
• Lasting Power of Attorney for Property and Financial Affairs for both of you‍
  
  • Allows your chosen attorneys to manage finances and property if you cannot.
• Lasting Power of Attorney for Health and Welfare for both of you‍
  
  • Allows your chosen attorneys to make health and care decisions if you cannot.
• Guardianship provisions in your wills‍
  
  • If your children are under 18, this allows you to state who you would want to look after them if both parents died.

Optional but useful

• A simple information pack for your executors and family‍
  
  • A short list of what you own, where the key documents are and who to contact.
    

Downsides of not having this in place

• Without Wills:
  
  • the intestacy rules decide who inherits and when
  • it can be slower and more expensive to administer the estate
  • it can create uncertainty for the people dealing with everything, especially where there is property and young children
• Without Lasting Powers of Attorney:
  
  • your spouse or civil partner may be blocked from dealing with banks and other organisations on your behalf
  • your family may need to apply to the Court of Protection to manage your finances which is slow and costly
  • health and care decisions can be harder if nobody has clear legal authority to act

Payment options

If Sail Legal is handling your conveyancing we can add the cost to your conveyancing bill. We can also offer Klarna so you can spread the cost.

We offer two packages and you can choose what suits your budget and preferred level of risk. Do click for more details: