This book was originally written to assist you, whether you wish to prepare your own will or to use a professional to make one for you and the third edition has the same aim. This edition thoroughly updates the second edition and includes the Mental Capacity Act 2005 which gave statutory backing to the concept of Living Wills and made major changes to the law relating to Powers of Attorney. The changes in the law of inheritance made by The Civil Partnership Act 2004 have been taken into account and in view of its growing importance, the section on Inheritance Tax and Tax Saving in your Will has been revised, updated, enlarged and given a separate chapter.

The book takes a logical step-by step approach to its subject and I hope and believe that it will alert you to the many and broad ranging matters to be considered when you take the important step and ‘have your last say’.

I have tried to deal not only with the formal, factual legal requirements and technicalities of making a will and to supply examples of wills which can be easily adapted to meet individual circumstances, but also to incorporate something of what I gained from the experience of making and proving thousands of wills in over 30 years practising as a family solicitor. I have endeavoured to set out the things a solicitor would tell you if you could afford to pay for the time it would take!

Throughout the book I have tried to use as few legal terms as conveniently possible and I have included a glossary to help you to understand those that have been used. The appendix contains examples of various forms referred to in the book, a checklist and specimen wills with notes as to how they may be adapted to individual circumstances and additional clauses for use in less common situations.

This book only deals with the law applicable to England and Wales. Scottish law is different. Moreover, law and practice does change frequently and personal circumstances vary considerably. For these reasons, while every effort has been made to ensure that the contents of the book are accurate and up to date, no responsibility is accepted for any loss resulting from acting, or from failure to act, as a result of it and the book is sold and bought on that basis. In particular, changes which might be made to the inheritance tax nil rate exemption band or tax rates in future Finance Acts, should be borne in mind, especially when reading the illustrative calculations made in chapter 5 on Inheritance Tax.

Throughout the book, for simplicity’s sake and not for any reasons of gender prejudice, I have assumed that the usual case of the male of the species predeceasing the female will occur and throughout the book, ‘he’ should be read as ‘she’ or ‘they’ where the context and circumstances require.

Crown copyright is acknowledged in respect of all statutory or governmental material quoted in the text.

I hope that you will find the book useful.