These are the golden rules when drawing up a will: Sarah Coles

Consider who you put in charge. That includes who you make executors of your will. You need to be able to trust them to act in your best interests, and to be able to keep on top of what can be quite a complicated administrative process. Don’t focus on who you like more, or your closest relative, this is about finding the right person or people for the job. If you have children, you also need to consider who you would ask to be a guardian if both parents were to pass away.

Don’t ask too much from them. You’re free to leave arrangements that are as complex as you want, but if you do, you need to set up the official legal structures and pay professionals to make it happen. If you’re relying on your loved ones to follow complex requests around trusts that mean they’ll have to take on admin and possible expense for years, they may eventually refuse - and that’s when problems will arise.

Be specific. The language in your will is important. Don’t just say you’ll leave your ‘favourite’ ring to your daughter – specify the exact ring and the specific daughter. One family ended up in court after a mother said she was leaving her ‘principal’ car to a family member – without clarifying whether she meant the priceless classic car or the family run-around.

Explain yourself. You need to make decisions about what you’re leaving, and to whom. Then it makes an awful lot of sense to talk to your family about this, to avoid disagreements and blame after you pass away. Talk to those who are affected about your decisions. If you have left everything equally to children, you may think there’s nothing to explain, but it’s still worth doing so in case someone was expecting more. If you have made decisions that leave a specific person worse off, an explanation is particularly important.

Don’t over-promise. If you promise to leave someone something specific, you need to deliver it in the paperwork or tell them you’ve changed your mind. If you duck the issue, you’re leaving it for someone else to face when you’ve gone.

Don’t ignore existing tensions. If there’s a relationship issue, any inheritance questions could make it worse. If you have written someone out of the will, or you think someone will argue for more, you need to take steps to protect everyone else. Explain why you have done this in writing, so any court looking into it will know you made the decision deliberately and carefully. The best place for this is usually a letter of wishes kept alongside the will. This is better than the will itself, because unlike the will, it isn’t made public, so it can’t inflame tensions. In this kind of environment, it’s particularly important you have made a watertight will, so it’s worth writing one with a professional. You may also want to appoint a professional as executor. This comes with a cost, but they can deal with any dispute without it affecting them personally.

Take care with legacies. Legacies are a lifeline for charities, but you need to think about the best way to do it. If you leave a fixed sum, your circumstances could change, so it makes up a much more or less significant part of your estate when you die. One way to deal with this is to lay out specific bequests to family and leave the remainder to charity. Alternatively, you can specify a specific percentage of your estate goes to the charity. However, if you take this approach and the value of your estate changes significantly, you need to make sure the will is updated so you don’t leave more or less than you were intending. You also need to let your family know, so they’re not surprised some of your estate is going to charity.

Having to think about these things can be pretty daunting, especially if you have a complicated family or any difficult relationships. However, it’s important not to let it put you off, because while there can be issues with wills, there can be even bigger ones if you don’t make a will at all.

If you don’t make a will (which is known as dying intestate), you have no control at all over how your estate is left, because it passes according to specific rules. If you’re not married, the rules can be particularly harsh, because your partner may inherit nothing aside from jointly-held assets: the estate will pass to children, parents and siblings – in that order. Even if you’re married, your spouse doesn’t necessarily inherit everything, because if you have children, they may be entitled to some of your estate too. It means as long as you follow the golden rules, making a will can help save an awful lot of heartache later.

Politically incorrect

In his party conference speech last week, Jeremy Hunt said he would tighten the law so that nobody should have their bank account closed because their views were ‘politically incorrect’. It got a warm reception in the hall, but it raises an interesting question: what’s the problem that’s being solved?

Discrimination on the grounds of political views is already outlawed through the Payment Accounts Regulations. The FCA also carried out an investigation into ‘unbanking’, asking for information from banks covering the year to June 2023. It found that during that time no bank had removed an account from someone for their political views. It said it needs to do more work to be certain, but there’s every sign this could be a non-issue.

That’s not to say that the ‘unbanked’ population isn’t a major problem. There are 1.1 million people with no bank account in the UK. Some people are particularly likely to fall into this category: 18-24-year-olds are twice as likely to be unbanked, and those with poor financial literacy are three times as likely. Some 7% of those out of work and of those with no educational qualifications have no bank account – along with 10% of Muslims. The FCA has highlighted there is reason to be concerned about the unbanked, and issues that the industry needs solve. It’s just not quite so clear that this includes large numbers of the ‘politically incorrect’.