TERMS & CONDITIONS

OF BUSINESS FOR WILLS.

HM3 Legal Terms and Conditions of Business for Wills

These additional terms and conditions should be read in conjunction with our standard terms and conditions which can be found here. 

  1. Inheritance Tax planning: We will not advise you on the most tax efficient method of preparing your Will or give advice on lifetime tax planning as part of our standard Will drafting service, but if you ask us to do so, we will provide such advice for an additional fee. We may give you information about inheritance tax (IHT) if we think it could help you to decide whether to ask for advice. If you ask us for advice about IHT it will be given based on the information you give to us, and on the tax law as it operates at the time. You must remember that your Will only takes effect at the time of death, not at the time of signing, and changes to legislation, to the tax treatment of Wills, the availability of exemptions and reliefs, in the attitude of HM Revenue & Customs and other factors can mean that your Will becomes ineffective or less effective in for IHT purposes.
  2. Domicile and Foreign Property: You must tell us if you are domiciled in a legal jurisdiction other than England & Wales. If you are domiciled overseas, we can only prepare your Will if it deals solely with assets of yours in the United Kingdom. We do not offer advice about any foreign assets you may own. Your Will may not be effective to pass any property located outside England and Wales. If you own property abroad and require advice in relation to it, we may be able to arrange alternative specialist advice for you, for which there will be a separate charge.
  3. Signing of Wills: The signing of Wills and Codicils must be done in accordance with strict rules in order for these documents to be valid. We will only accept responsibility for the correct signing and witnessing of these documents if we have supervised the signing at one of our offices, or arranged the supervision with suitable personnel outside the office, for which an additional fee may be payable. Otherwise, we will give you written instructions for the signing of your Will, but the responsibility for it being done correctly will remain with you, and we will not be liable for any mistakes or omissions that do occur, even if those only become apparent after your death.
  4. Review of Wills: All Wills should be reviewed regularly and when there are any material change in your circumstances, such as divorce, marriage, the birth of a child or the inheritance of a sum of money. We may, but are not obliged to, contact you in the future if any changes should take place which we think may affect your Will or result in different tax consequences on your death. We therefore recommend that you contact us periodically to review your Will. Please note that our agreement to store your Will does not mean we have any obligation to tell you of changes in the law or tax which may occur in the future. The responsibility for the conduct of a review remains with you.
  5. Sharing of information: Solicitors have a duty to their clients to pass on to them any information they have which could be to their benefit. At the same time, they owe a duty to their clients to keep any information they have about their affairs confidential. Where two persons jointly instruct this firm to prepare Wills we will owe them those two duties individually. A conflict of interest could arise if one of the persons makes information available to us which is not to be passed on to the other. Because of the difficulties that can arise in those circumstances, we must take all the steps we can to avoid such a conflict of interest. Therefore, where we are instructed by two persons, we shall assume that any information provided to us by either person may be shared with the other unless you expressly tell us that it may not. In those circumstances, we are unlikely to be able to continue to act for either person in the matter, in which event we will close our file and render a bill for the work done up to that time.
  6. Enquiries: Unless you instruct us to, we will not carry out any checks or make any enquiries or investigation to establish: your domicile; your ownership of assets and ability to pass them by your Will; your marital status; the number and legitimacy of your children and other family members or beneficiaries; the existence or validity of earlier Wills or testamentary instruments, lifetime gifts and trusts; and the size and composition of your estate.
  7. Assets passing by your Will: Your Will may not be able to pass on all your assets on death. Pension funds, company or partnership assets, jointly held assets, foreign assets and assets held in trust are among those that you may not be able to pass or where restrictions apply. We can, if you ask us to, make enquiries and advise you how to deal with these.
  8. Death of a beneficiary: Any gift in your Will to a beneficiary who dies before you will not take effect. You will be asked by us to name an alternative beneficiary to cover that possibility but if you do not do so circumstances can arise where the lapsed gift is not inherited by any beneficiary under the Will, and may then pass as if you had died without a Will. A gift in your Will of a specific item or property will fail if the item or property is sold, lost, destroyed or given away in your lifetime and, unless you provide differently in the Will, will not be replaced by a similar or replacement gift, or the cash value of the item or property.
  9. Marriage: Your Will is revoked if you marry after making it unless you have made it in contemplation of a particular marriage. If you divorce after making your Will, it will remain valid but any provision you have made in it for your spouse will be treated as if he or she had died on the date of the decree absolute. We recommend you review your Will if you divorce.
  10. Draft Wills: Apart from urgent cases then, unless you tell us not to, we will prepare and send you a draft Will to read, consider and approve. It will be your responsibility to tell us if the draft is approved, if changes are required, or if you want further explanation or advice. We will not be liable or responsible to you or any other person if, after sending you a draft Will, you fail to respond and we do not write to remind you, or if you (without our knowledge and consent) sign and complete the draft copy of your Will.
  11. Mirror Wills: If you and your spouse or partner are both making Wills that match one another then, unless stated otherwise, either of you (before and after one of you dies) can revoke or change your own Will without the knowledge or consent of the other.

GET IN TOUCH…

If you’ve got a legal enquiry, call us on 01244 318 131 or click here to complete a short form, and a bl**dy brilliant lawyer will be in touch.

JOIN US

RECRUITMENT

After a refreshingly different new role? Check out our current vacancies or contact us in complete confidence to explore possible opportunities at recruitment@law.uk.com

RECRUITMENT AGENCIES/PSL

Recruitment agencies – heads up, we do not accept speculative CVs including those responding to roles on our website. We work directly with a PSL and will not accept liability for fees or commission if we employ a candidate who applied directly to us, or who was put forward by an uninstructed agency.

CHECK OUT THE LATEST ON HM3 LEGAL…