Wills – Case study

After her friend’s bad experience with a DIY Will, Annie entrusted her Will review to Attwaters. Here’s how she found the process.

“Drafting a Will is a process of trust,” says Annie (62). “Unless you’re a legal expert yourself, you need to accept someone else’s word that what you’re holding in your hand really reflects what you want to say and will get your money passed onto your loved ones without any hassle.”

Annie contacted Attwaters in late 2024 for a Will review. She had a Will in place but had not updated it in more than 20 years. “I wanted to be sure my estate is going to go to the people I want to benefit from it,” Annie says.

She was prompted to check after her friend’s husband’s Will led to a lengthy legal process. “After my friend Mel’s husband passed, she spent months dealing with Will business. Some of the wording in her husband’s Will was vague, which led to a challenge from one of his daughters from his first marriage. The whole process cost her thousands, as well as the stress of sorting it out at a time when she should have been grieving,” Annie adds.

In Mel’s case, her husband’s self-made Will, drafted in 2020 using an online template, included ambiguous wording that led to a legal dispute.

“I needed to know my family wouldn’t suffer the same pain,” she says. “I chose Attwaters because I needed that certainty that I was getting something legally sound. The whole team was lovely, so caring and competent.”