The search for a Will – How to find out whether your loved one left a valid Will

After a loved one has died there is a lot to think about and arrange, all at a difficult time when family members are grieving their loss. If your loved one left a valid Will and you know where it is kept this can help reduce some of the uncertainty. Unfortunately, a missing Will or doubts over whether one was left at all can have the opposite effect and cause a lot of stress for the family.

Our head of Wills and Probate, Amye Aris, discusses a few practical steps you can take to see whether a valid Will left by your loved one exists, and if so, where it is held:

• SEARCHING THROUGH PAPERS

I always advise my clients to make a folder of all of their assets and liabilities and put it somewhere obvious with a copy of the Will, as well as our firm’s details inside, so that anyone looking for it can contact us immediately and discuss next steps.  It is important to keep this up to date as it reduces the work a lay-Executor or professional will have to do when you die. If you are looking for a Will and no such folder exists, you will need to search through all personal papers you can find, through places like desks, safes, or lockboxes to try and locate it and make sure you have the most up-to-date version.

If your search is unsuccessful, or you do not have access to a loved one’s personal papers, then we can help you to search for a Will online as members of Certainty, the online National Will Register.

• WHAT IS CERTAINTY

Certainty, the online National Will Register, maintains the biggest national database of Wills. They estimate that they have a record of 21 million registered Wills made in the UK; nearly half of all written Wills are registered with them.

As a firm we are a member of Certainty and we offer our clients the benefit of logging their Wills in the Certainty National Will Database so that they can easily be found when needed. We also store them away, free of charge, for when they are needed by the Executors of the deceased.

The Wills registered with Certainty are kept completely confidential, there is no record of what is in them, only the date of the Will and a record of where it is stored.

• HOW TO MAKE SURE YOUR OWN WILL IS FOUND WHEN THE TIME COMES

If you have experienced the stress and uncertainty a missing Will can cause, you will want to avoid putting your own loved ones through this when you die.

You can tell your loved ones that you have made a Will and provide them with the Solicitor’s details of whom you dealt with and the firm that stores your Will for you.

You should always ensure that you use a firm of Solicitors like us that are members of Certainty, who can register your Will with them once made. To find out more about the national Will register you can find information on www.nationalwillregister.co.uk