I keep hearing that I should write a will. I'm 65 years old , living in a small terraced house in North London (u.k.) together with wife 61 years old and son 29 years old.
The house is worth about just under 300K which is below the inheritence threshold and is owned jointly (tenants in common) with my wife. My total savings are small.
When I die I would wish to leave it all the wife, and any amount to my son that enables him not to pay any inheritance tax.
I guess thats a fairly common kind of family situation, without any additional complications; so I thought it would be fairly easy to get advice on how to write a will.
On google I can get up to 7 million returns on my searches, but everyone I've looked at wants to make money out giving any advice. With plenty of 'a bad will is worse than no will' kind of suggestions, thrown in.
Is the advice that you *should* make a will really applicable to someone like myself? What would be any advantages to having a will?
The nearest I have got so far to creating one is a bit of information I picked up, which says I can just write out roughly as follow:
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This will 'dated' .........by 'john........' of 'address'......
I revoke all earlier wills and Codicils.
I appoint as my executor and trustees my wife 'name'........ and my son .......
I give my Estate and Possesions to my wife ............
If she does not survive me I give my Estate and possisions to my son ......
Signed by ............. John 'my name'
In our presence and attested by us in his presence and in the presence of each other.
Witness 1. signature......., full name ...... address......occupation......
Witness 2. signature......., full name ...... address......occupation......
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Is this really all I need to do? In fact in my situation do I really even need to do this? Thanks for any advice.