According to consumer research from IRN Legal Reports published in November 2022, only 35% of the UK adult population has made a Will.

You may assume that there is no need to make a Will and that your loved ones will inherit your estate anyway, or you may simply have “just not got around to it”, but the need to write a Will if you want to make sure that your estate goes to your chosen loved ones, cannot be emphasised enough.

If you die without writing a Will in England and Wales, your property and money will be shared out according to a legal default, rather than your own expressed wishes. Dying without a Will is known as dying ‘intestate’, a word with Latin origins which essentially means ‘without a testament’. It doesn’t matter how close you are to certain relatives; if no Will is made before you die, your assets and money will be allocated according to the same intestacy rules as anyone else – furthermore, intestacy rules can create lengthy delays and legal complications, causing undue stress and financial burden for your loved ones.

The rules mean that you do not have any control over what happens to your estate. Instead, the law dictates who will benefit from your estate from among your blood relatives. There is a hierarchy of beneficiaries who may benefit, with one group of beneficiaries benefiting to the exclusion of all subsequent groups of beneficiaries on the hierarchical structure. To help explain, if you die without leaving a valid Will, and are only survived by your parents, your siblings, uncles and aunts - your parents (having the highest priority) will inherit your whole estate to the exclusion of your siblings and uncles and aunts. Step children and other step-relatives or foster children who have no blood relationship to the deceased have no automatic rights. Cohabiting partners who were neither married nor in a civil partnership can't inherit under the rules of intestacy.

So, whilst these rules are in place to help decide what happens when a person dies without a Will, they will not always deliver what you or your loved ones may expect or wish for. Furthermore, sorting out an estate when there isn’t a Will could take a bit longer than when there is one, and sorting out the estate can be more complicated because the legal process decides who inherits the estate according to this set of rules.

If there are no surviving relatives, the person’s estate passes to the Crown, and the HM Treasury is then responsible for dealing with the estate.

While most of us will not have accumulated a vast fortune like West Ham co-chairman David Gold, his story underlines the importance of writing a Will to simplify the process for your loved ones.

David Gold died following a short illness earlier this year and it has since been revealed from court documents that the entrepreneur, who owed much of his wealth to soft porn and lingerie, died intestate, meaning no valid Will was created before his passing.

The businessman was not married at the time of his death but had been engaged to long-time partner Lesley for 15 years. According to a High Court document, David's daughter Vanessa Julia Young has been named administrator of his estate, which has a 'net value of £125m', permitting her to value the estate, pay any debts and distribute the estate according to the intestacy rules.

In some scenarios, intestacy rules can cause your loved ones to miss out entirely and receive nothing or force them to pay a hefty inheritance tax bill that could have been avoided by making a Will.

Sorting out an estate when there’s no Will isn’t always easy, the rules can be complicated, and David Gold’s daughter could now face a lengthy process to sort out the estate finances, whilst grieving the loss of her father. To make things much easier, ensuring that your estate will not be subject to the rules of intestacy is simple: just make sure you’ve got a legally binding Will in place before you die. You can do this at any time in life; in fact, it is now reported that around 1 in 10 18-34-year-olds have already written a Will to avoid difficulties for their families when they pass.

Of course, there is more to life than money. But writing a Will means you can support those who depend on you financially, such as your spouse, children, or a cohabiting partner. It also gives you the chance to leave a legacy to friends or charities close to your heart. Making a Will may also help reduce the amount of Inheritance Tax that might be payable on the value of the assets and property you leave behind.

Whether or not you think you have many possessions or much money, it’s important to make a Will because if you die without one, the rules will dictate how your money, property, or possessions should be allocated.

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Don’t wait until it’s too late. If this is of interest to you for lasting peace of mind, please contact us today at wills@essentialinsurance.co.uk and we’ll help you to secure your loved ones’ future.

Will Writing is not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.