Who are your beneficiaries ?
It is extremely important that any named beneficiaries in a Will can be easily identified . An Executor must be able to say with certainty that an individual either is or is not a beneficiary under that Will . There are many things that you can do to assist your Executors and make your beneficiaries as identifiable as possible :
• Include the full name of each beneficiary and where possible , their relationship to you as the Testator . Simply gifting “£ 1,000 to John Smith ” with no explanation or obvious link to you as the Testator is not sufficient and will make it extremely difficult for the Executor ( s ) to identify a beneficiary when dealing with the estate .
• Any names by which the beneficiary is also known may also be included “ my friend John Smith , also known as “ Jonny ”.
• Full addresses of each beneficiary should be included . Even where beneficiaries have moved after the Execution of the Will and where the address in the Will has not been updated to reflect this , it will provide useful as one of their last known addresses – any address is better than no address in helping to track down an individual .
• Think about including a list of addresses to be stored with your Will – this will assist the Executors when required to contact beneficiaries .
There are no legal requirement to include specific details of individual beneficiaries in a Will , however , these will prove useful when contacting beneficiaries during the administration process once the Testator has passed away .
You should always bear in mind that ultimately , where there is uncertainty of who a legacy or gift is intended for in a Will , then that gift shall fail . It will then subsequently either fall to an alternative beneficiary , fall to residue , or in severe cases , mean that the estate is partially intestate .
- Article provided by SWW Trust Corporation .
The Society of Will Writers
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