Did you know in England and Wales, when you die without a will, the law decides who gets your assets and how your possessions are distributed. Pretty scary, huh?
Having a will, even a simple one, can help ensure that your partner can continue to live in your shared home, your children are looked after by the people you desire, sentimental possessions are passed on to those you wish to have them and your assets and finances are distributed according to your wishes. Recently I’ve been thinking about the past, the future and the responsibilities of being a mum. Its a lot to think about, so anything that can make life a bit easier definitely has to be a good thing.
We have quite a complicated family set up being a very loving and close, but blended family. We have four children between us, three who are still dependent on us and will be for some time, so getting ‘our house in order’ was extremely important. I have a will but it is very out of date and lists people in it I would definitely now not want to benefit from my estate and my partner has never had a will. I kept meaning to do something, wrote notes for myself, wrote down some ideas but never seemed to find the time to actually do it.
But where do you start?
When Smart-Will approached me and asked if I would be interesting in trying their app based will writing service, after checking them out online and looking at their reviews I could see this could be an easy and simple way to get wills in place for myself and my fiancé.
The aim at Smart-Will is to take the stress out of writing a Will and enable you to take control of the process, allowing you to easily produce a legally sound Will that accurately reflects your wishes on what will happen when you die.
The app itself is really easy to use. Once you register you go through a series of questions and choices to create the Will you need. You can create a single Will or a Mirror Will (these are virtually identical Wills where one person in a couple leaves their estate to the other in the event of their passing away. The most common type are when one spouse leaves everything to their spouse and then to their children). This was the type of Will my fiancé and I decided on.
The app has simple drop downs and tabs to select to make each step very simple. For a Mirror Will you go through the process twice, once for yourself and once for your partner.
The app itself is easy to use and free of jargon. The Will you create can be tailored to suit your exact circumstances, giving you the freedom to appoint the executors of your choice and divide your estate between your chosen beneficiaries as you wish. Leaving gifts of money, specific possessions or gifts of money to charity, is made easy using the menus within each step.
Some of the questions might make you feel a little uncomfortable, as its not easy thinking about death and dying but all all know we need to think about them. As well as the financial details of the Wills themselves, you will also need to think about some big questions such as choosing a guardian for your children and if you want to be buried or cremated.
If your funeral is something you want to sort out at the same time, Smart-Will is able to offer assistance with funeral arrangements, and even offers clients the choice to indicate they’d like to have their ashes scattered high above the earth, at the edge of space!
Once all the steps are completed you view a summary and check you are happy with all your answers and choices. Their online app means once you’ve created your Will on your phone or tablet you can choose to utilise their free secure storage so that you can be assured that your Will is in safe hands.
As well as all this, the help they offer extends beyond simply helping you create a Will; when you appoint them as professional executors, they will obtain fixed fee probate quotes from local solicitors, to ensure your family and loved ones benefit from the best value services available at no extra cost. Within the process they explain how to choose an executor and why you may want to have a professional executor which is the choice I made.
With this being a modern solution for both creating and managing your Will, Smart-Will offer free updates to your Will for life. This was important to me as we all know that our circumstances change over the course of our lives, and I wanted a Will that was flexible and could grow and change as my life did. However if you need something bespoke or more complicated they can do that too – find all the fees here.
All in all I found the process simple and stress free. The Wills we have chosen are quite simple but work for us right now. Plus the peace of mind I now have knowing we have something legally binding in place protecting our family is a great feeling. I am waiting to receive my copy of our Wills but in the meantime I know they exist and are stored safely as part of the Will writing service. So that just leaves the question – are you looking for some peace of mind too?
The Smart-Will app is available for IOS here and Android here.
*I was gifted this product but all views stated are my own. For more information please see my disclaimer section
Karrimors on…
always a blue sky girl 
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