There has been an increasing number of disputes over inheritances in recent years and, the source of at least some of these, which could have been avoided, is undoubtedly the use of home-made wills.

Whilst English law has a number of formalities which must be complied with before a will is valid, individuals are free to prepare their own wills without professional help.

However, in our experience, doing so can often lead to problems which may well have been avoided had a lawyer been instructed to prepare the will.

Often relatives or partners who have either been omitted from the will or have been left less than they anticipated, raise concerns and this can then lead to costly disputes.

For example, in a recent case where we acted, the deceased had made a simple handwritten home-made will. Apart from the fact that it omitted the standard executor clause (so incurring further expense after his death as it was necessary to obtain affidavit evidence from the witnesses to satisfy the Probate Registry that the will was properly executed) the deceased clearly had some deterioration in his mental state prior to making the will.

This led to a relative seeking to challenge the will on the ground that the deceased lacked the necessary mental capacity at the time.

Fortunately, the parties involved were eventually able to reach an agreement but not before substantial sums had been spent on legal fees.

Had a competent solicitor been instructed to prepare the will, he or she would have made sure that they were satisfied as to the deceased’s mental capacity and would probably have recommended asking a medical practitioner to confirm this and possibly witness the will. Whilst this would have incurred some expense at the time, this would have been very small compared with the costs of the dispute after death.

Additionally, this sort of dispute almost always leads to suspicions and allegations on one or both sides which would have been avoided if there was no room for doubt.

In other cases, we have seen clients use wording which they probably thought was clear but, when looked at by others was capable of more than one interpretation. This has led, for example in another case where we were instructed to very expensive proceedings involving several parties where the Court had to decide the true meaning of the will.

In our view, anyone thinking of making their own will would be well advised to consider very carefully whether or not this is in fact sensible. Doing so will often leave problems for the family and friends and uncertainty and may also result in the estate eventually being distributed not in the way which the testator would have liked. A relatively small expenditure on professional help at the appropriate time can save a lot of problems and expense for loved ones in due course.