Will & Trust Application

This form is designed to help you set up your Will by gathering key details about your wishes, executors, beneficiaries, and any Trusts you may need.

You need at least one, preferable two Executors. The Executor is a person who you trust to administer your estate, pay outstanding bills, arrange probate, and distribute gifts and payments to your beneficiaries after your death.

They can be your partner and a beneficiary of your Will. Principally, they should be organized and trustworthy. They can always seek advice should they need technical help, so experience or knowledge is not necessary.

We would normally appoint Simply Legal & Associates (SLA) as a reserve Executor, this means they would step in if the appointed Executors were unable to act, for whatever reason. They would charge for this service, only if they needed to step in.

Executor #1

Executor #2

Additional Executors

If you have children of a minor age (18 years old, but this does not mean an 18-year-old does not need a guardian, they are still children during difficult times), you need to choose who they will live with in the event of your death.

When choosing guardians, think carefully about where your guardians live, their age and financial position. The least upset caused during this difficult time the better.

Ideally your children should know the guardian, they should live close enough to the current school and know that you have put them as the guardian. Do you think additional financial support would be helpful to ensure they continue in the current lifestyle?

From our experience, we would advise you select an individual, rather than a couple, should the couple separate in the future, amendments to your Will should not be required.

Guardian #1

Guardian #2

If you are leaving assets (money or property) for your Minors, you cannot give this to them absolutely and it needs to be left in Trust for them, we suggest until they are 25.

You need to select two Trustees. A Trustee would have similar skills to the Executors, it may be an idea to choose someone different from the Guardian, so the role of love and care is separated from financial, but this does not need to be the case.

The difference between the Executors role and the Trustees role, is that the Executors role is finished after the estate is settled, the Trustees role will continue (although they can retire and new Trustees appointed) until the child is of age, usually 25.

The Trustee will be legally responsible to the beneficiary (this is likely to be your child/children) to look after the money, invest the money (after seeking advice) and distributing the money to the Beneficiaries.

Trustee #1

Trustee #2

Would you like to ensure that, your share of the property which you own, after repayment of debts, is passed to your children/someone specific?

The survivor will continue to have, for the remainder of their life, rights of residence and the beneficiaries of the Trust will not be allowed, without permission, to ‘move-in’. The survivor will be able to move, upsize, or downsize, just as they can currently.

If you would, you need to arrange for your share of the property to be placed in Trust on your first death. Failure to do this could mean that in the event of death, your spouse (if applicable) may remarry, become bankrupt, go into a Local Authority Care Home or be sued and your share of the property, which passed to your spouse, could be lost to the ‘new’ spouse or creditors/Local Authority rather than your children benefit from this.

Trustee #1

Trustee #2