Latest HMRC data reveals that IHT receipts for the period April 2021 to February 2022 now stand at £5.5bn; £0.7bn higher than the same period last year.
Also, almost half (47%) of Brits who have a Will haven’t updated it for more than five years, meaning nearly half of Wills in the UK are likely to be out of date. Of those, a third (33%) haven’t updated it for over 7 years, and a fifth (21%) haven’t dusted it off in more than a decade.
A Will is a legal declaration of your wishes and is only valid if it complies with certain requirements set by Law. There are countless reasons why you should make a Will and we list below the main ones.
A Will is the only way you can help ensure your wishes are carried out after your death. If you have not made a Will, your Will fails or is invalid, then the Government Rules of Intestacy will apply to give structure to its distribution. These rules will be unlikely to reflect your real wishes.Without a Will, the distribution of your estate will take much longer than it would if one was in place. This could cause unnecessary distress to those that need early access to money or property.
Disputes can be avoided if a valid Will is made and your loved ones will be more likely to receive what you have left them.A Will can be used to appoint legal guardians for your children as well as to express your funeral wishes and to specify gifts to individuals or charities. None of these would be reflected in the Rules of Intestacy.
As I am sure you are aware, you can obtain a Will from a number of sources; you could even write your own. However, there are good reasons to use a professional service and our service provides the following:
- A discussion and advice on the principal aspects of the Will and the meaning of its terms.
- Assistance with the choice of executors (and guardians if relevant). Many Will writing firms and solicitors offer a low-cost Will, but then try to encourage you to appoint themselves as executors and then charge heavily for providing this service when the time comes.
- We are instruction takers for the Will, meaning we gather the necessary information. This is passed to a professional Will Writing company, who do nothing but write Wills and Powers of Attorney, and have written over 15,000 Wills since 1996.
- They are full members of the Society of Will Writers and have Professional Indemnity (insurance) cover.
- Secure Will storage can also be included, at a cost of £10 per year. If this service is chosen, then any future amendments to the Will can be made free of charge.
It is worth reinforcing that if you do not have a Will, then the Rules of Intestacy must be relied upon and your wishes may not be carried out. Some people argue that effectively everyone has a Will, but if you rely on the Rules of Intestacy, you are using a Will that someone else has written for you.
In addition, other concerns are over the drop in Will uptake since the pandemic – the number of Brits over the age of 40 who have a Will in place has dropped from 65% in 2020, to 54% in 2022 – that’s over 10%.
In its latest report, HMRC has also explained that it expected higher IHT receipts from March to August 2021 due to “higher volumes of wealth transfers that took place during the Covid-19 pandemic”. However, more data will be required before this can be confirmed.
Commenting on historic data, HMRC revealed that receipts in April to May 2017, and March to April 2019, were particularly high due to announcements (and subsequent delays and cancellations) of rises to probate fees in England and Wales in February 2017 and November 2018, which is likely to have caused executors to bring forward tax payments to avoid the prospective higher fees.
Lower receipts in April and May 2020, HMRC said, were due to a temporary issue where HMRC were unable to accept cheques for payment of IHT due to Covid-19, which was resolved, hence the peak in June 2020 receipts.
The average amount paid per estate was £209,000.
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