Capabilities / Wills & Custody
A Will drafted properly, checked by legal counsel, and kept somewhere it can actually be found when it is needed.
The first step
A Will is a legal declaration of how your estate is to be dealt with after death, and it is the foundation the rest of the structure sits on. The problems rarely come from not having one. They come from a Will written for a life that has since changed, sitting somewhere no one can find it, or governing an estate that has grown more complex than the document itself.
We draft Wills, appoint professional executors, and hold the document in custody. Instructions can be taken at your office or at home, whichever is less disruptive. All Wills are written in English, so the application for a Grant of Probate is not delayed by translation.
What the service includes
What it is used for
Directing the estate yourself rather than leaving it to the intestacy rules, which divide by formula and know nothing of your family.
Recording who should raise minor children, and on what resources — the decision no one else can make for you afterwards.
Putting a professional in charge of administration, so the burden does not fall on a grieving relative with no experience of probate.
Replacing one written before the marriage, the children, the property, the business, or the death that changed everything.
Using the Will to move the estate into a standby trust on death, so beneficiaries are provided for on terms rather than handed capital outright.
Settling what happens to a company, its shares and its continuity, rather than leaving it to be argued over.
Will custody
Most people put the Will in a bank safe deposit box, which sounds prudent and is precisely the wrong choice. When the account holder dies, the box and everything in it is frozen — including the document your family needs in order to deal with the estate.
The alternative is worse. Wills hidden carefully at home are routinely never found at all. They are misplaced, lost to fire or flood — or quietly destroyed by the one person who stood to gain from their disappearance.
The Will is held securely on a lifetime basis, with controlled access and a barcoded retrieval system, so that the testator and the executor can obtain it at the moment it is required and nobody else can.
Every testator is issued a personal custody card carrying their unique code, along with a Schedule of Assets — so that the estate itself is documented, not only the instructions for dividing it.
What custody protects against
Custody is available for Wills written through lawyers, financial intermediaries and other organisations — not only for Wills we have drafted. The document is held with our partners under the same controlled access and retrieval system, and you are issued the same custody card.
One afternoon
Enquiries
Tell us what you intend to protect. We will come back with who needs to be in the room.
