Will question

To quote "am I wrong - is this essentially what wills are all about?!" Yes! Any decent solicitor should be able to do exactly what you're after.

Regards,

Matt.

Yes, you can do that.

Indeed, to continue the programming analogy, some wills have "bugs" in them. You need to try to anticipate what might happen in the future.

However, since you can make a new will cancelling all your previous wills, reviewing your will every few years is a good idea.

Jim Hicks, Information Technology Services, Warwick University, Coventry CV4 7AL Coventry (O24) 765 23262 Fax: Coventry (O24) 7652 4333 snipped-for-privacy@warwick.ac.uk To err is human. To mess up you need a computer, but to mess up big time you need a network.

Bitstring , from the wonderful person snipped-for-privacy@mimosa.csv.warwick.ac.uk said

The OP also needs to consider what/whether things are in joint names, because typically the spouse will get 100% of anything in joint names unless other steps have been taken. This may be what they want for the main family home, but likely is -not- what he might want for savings accounts etc. (Or maybe everything is in single names these days?).

It may also make sense to leave assets in the form of a discretionary Will Trust, with the parents + spouse + whoever else as potential beneficiaries and one of them as trustee, to avoid what you leave to your parents turning into an IHT headache for them if they didn't actually spend it - the trustee(s) can distribute it among any of the beneficiaries outside of the estate of any of them. In particular Councils can't go and get it for care home fees, although the parent (if they are the trustee) could take it for that purpose. If you want to play that game, do consult a solicitor!

Actually I would have thought that a will is very much like a computer program.

In fact it begs the question of if you wrote your will as a real computer program, would it be legal. I kind of think it should be (IANAL). Just imagine the executor duely entering all the particulars and pressing RUN and everyone waiting to see who got what...

"Unhandled exception : I leave everything to Microsoft".

In message , GSV Three Minds in a Can writes

Beware of leaving assets directly to the Trust, tis can cause all kinds of problems and potential future taxation. Another way is to leave the assets to whoever you want with the beneficiaries issuing an IOU for an amount up to the Threshold for IHT to the Trust. On the beneficiaries death the debt is paid form their estate.

Most solicitors have ready limited knowledge of Trusts and probate. Only yesterday I cam across a solicitor that the will he had written gave the survivor and interest in possession of the house in the Discretionary Trust thereby putting it in her estate for IHT purposes.

What you describe is pretty typical and happens in pretty much every case.

Thanks for all the responses to this - I was even considering writing the program myself and so amazingly thought exactly the same as what you wrote above! But doubtless it would not stand up in court and besides anyone could recompile it for all I know later on so its probably not a good idea. Bet you though, that some entrpreneur reading this somewhere is now coding it up and will try and make a business venture out of it. Just you remember when you make your millions where the idea came from!

For some interesting thoughts on this, read the book Accelerando by Charles Stross. In this scifi book, whole sets of shell companies are formed using an algorithm, company statues are written in the form of S-expressions, and eventually artificial intelligences oust the humans by moving to "Economics

A very good read, except the ending is a bit weak IMHO

Jeremy