Temporary Wills Procedure during the Covid-19 Pandemic

We appreciate that there is a lot of uncertainty during this difficult time and many of you will be interested in making a Will during the Covid-19 crisis. Our aim is to continue to provide this service to you albeit in an altered manner which is in line with government guidelines and adherence to social distancing.

We have outlined below the temporary Will making procedure that we have put in place for your comfort and safety.

Taking instructions

Our solicitors are working from home to continue to provide legal services to you, however our offices are closed to members of the public in accordance with government policy.

Therefore, we will take your instructions over the phone. It may be possible to have a virtual ‘face-to-face’ meeting through Facetime or conferencing apps such as Zoom. 

Once we have spoken with you initially, we will email our Wills Questionnaire to you.

Once we have received the completed questionnaire from you, we will draft your Will and email it to you for your approval. If you have any amendments that you would like to make, we are happy to discuss this over the phone or via email before the final execution of your Will.

When you are fully satisfied with the Will, we will email you the final copy for execution.

Taking instructions for clients without access to the internet

If you do not have access to the internet, we can take your Will instructions on a telephone call. Please be aware that if we are taking your instructions in this manner, you must be alone when speaking to us as this is an extremely personal and confidential matter.

We will then draft your Will. If time permits, we can post it out to you for final approval. If time is of the essence, we can schedule an additional call with you to finalise the drafting of your Will over the telephone. Once you are fully satisfied with your Will, we will post it out to you for execution.

Executing the Will

When we send the final Will to you (by email or post) which has been approved by us, the Will can be executed if the following procedures are strictly adhered to:

1. Print out the Will.

• Two witnesses need to be present.

It is vitally important that you do not choose witnesses who are going to benefit in any way under your Will or who are married to or are civil partners of any beneficiary. If you chose beneficiaries or family members to witness your Will, any gift to them as outlined in your Will would be null and void.

The witnesses you choose must therefore be independent.

• You must sign and date the Will in the presence of the two witnesses.

It is essential that the two witnesses see you sign the Will. It is acceptable for the witnesses to view you sign the Will from a distance, or even through a window if it makes everyone more comfortable.  

If you cannot get the two witnesses together at the same time to witness your signature, it is possible that you can sign the Will in the presence of one witness, then acknowledge that the signature is yours to the second witness if necessary.

• The witnesses must each sign the Will in your presence.

As above, you may view the witness’ signatures of your Will from a safe distance.

The Will must be signed by you and the two witnesses in order to be validly executed.

• The Name, Occupation and Address of the witnesses must be written on the Will under the signature of the Witnesses.

• The original Will must be posted to our office in an envelope with no staples or paperclips attached.

Please confirm by email or telephone when you have posted the original Will to our office.

Payment

Costs will be agreed up front and should be paid to our office account, details of which will be provided to you via post or telephone call. We will never provide our bank details to you via email or text.

We will resume normal service as soon as possible. We hope that our temporary Will making procedure will bring some comfort to you and your loved ones during these very difficult times. For further information on making Wills and related legal matters, contact Huw Worthington by email at [email protected]