Do I Need a Will UK (2026)? 10 Situations Where a Will Is Essential

There is no legal requirement to make a will in England and Wales — no law compels you to make one. However, the practical and financial consequences of not having a will can be severe. If you die without a valid will ('intestate'), the Administration of Estates Act 1925 determines who inherits your estate. These rules apply automatically, without any regard for your actual wishes, the nature of your relationships, or what would be fair to the people who depended on you. The intestacy rules were last substantially updated in 2014 and they reflect a conventional nuclear family structure — married couple, their biological children, and no significant outside relationships. They work reasonably well for simple estates with a surviving married spouse and children. They work badly for: cohabiting couples (the unmarried partner receives nothing regardless of relationship length); blended families (stepchildren receive nothing); people with specific wishes about charity, friends, or distant relatives; business owners (no executor with business knowledge is automatically appointed); people concerned about inheritance tax; and anyone who wants to appoint a guardian for their children. The short answer to 'do I need a will?' is: if any of the following apply to you, you almost certainly need one. Even if none of them currently apply, circumstances change — and having a will means your wishes are on record from the moment you make it.

The ten situations where not having a will is most likely to produce an outcome you would not want: (1) You are cohabiting (living with a partner without being married or in a civil partnership): this is the most critical scenario. Under intestacy, an unmarried partner receives NOTHING — regardless of the length of the relationship, regardless of joint assets, regardless of children together. If you cohabit and die without a will, your entire estate passes to your next of kin under the AEA 1925 hierarchy. Your partner is not in that hierarchy. They would need to make a claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 — expensive, uncertain, and distressing; (2) You have minor children (under 18): a will is the ONLY legal mechanism to appoint a guardian for your children under Children Act 1989 s.5. Without a guardian appointment, the courts decide who cares for your children. Additionally, intestacy does not set up trusts at appropriate ages — the statutory trust vests at 18. A will lets you set the vesting age at 21 or 25; (3) You are in a second or subsequent marriage/relationship with children from a previous relationship: without a will, your current spouse may inherit your entire estate (or most of it), potentially excluding children from your first relationship. Mirror wills or a life interest trust may be needed; (4) You own a business: without an executor with business knowledge and express powers to continue trading, a sole trader business may be wound down immediately. Partnership interests; company shares; BPR eligibility — all need will provision; (5) Your estate may be subject to inheritance tax: a will can reduce IHT by claiming the RNRB, using the spouse exemption correctly, setting up trusts, and directing charitable gifts; (6) You have stepchildren: stepchildren receive NOTHING under intestacy unless they have been legally adopted. If you want stepchildren to benefit, you must make a will; (7) You have strong views about who administers your estate: intestacy appoints administrators in a fixed order. If you want a specific trusted person as executor — not your spouse, not your eldest child — you must make a will; (8) You want to leave anything to charity: intestacy rules make no provision for charitable gifts. If you want even a small portion to go to charity, you must make a will; (9) You want to leave anything to friends, carers, or godchildren: the intestacy hierarchy is limited to relatives. Friends, close family friends, carers, godchildren, and others receive nothing under intestacy; (10) You own overseas property: a will dealing with foreign assets can avoid double probate complications and ensure the right people inherit across jurisdictions.

If you die intestate (without a valid will) in England and Wales, your estate is distributed under the Administration of Estates Act 1925 intestacy rules: (1) Married or civil partner with children: your spouse/civil partner receives: all your personal chattels (furniture, jewellery, car, household contents); the statutory legacy of £322,000 (2026/27, reviewed periodically). The remainder of the estate is divided: half to the surviving spouse/civil partner; half to the children equally (held on statutory trust until each reaches 18). If the estate is under £322,000, the spouse/civil partner receives everything; (2) Married or civil partner with no children: the surviving spouse/civil partner inherits everything absolutely; (3) No surviving spouse/civil partner (or not married): the estate goes to children in equal shares. If any child has already died, their share goes to their children (grandchildren); (4) No children: parents, then siblings (whole blood), then half-siblings, then grandparents, then aunts and uncles — each category excludes those below it; (5) No family: the estate passes to the Crown as 'bona vacantia' through the Treasury Solicitor; (6) The statutory legacy figure (£322,000): this figure is reviewed periodically by Statutory Instrument. It has not always kept pace with house prices — in areas with high property values, the statutory legacy may not be sufficient to allow the spouse to keep the family home outright. A will allows you to leave the house directly to the spouse without complications; (7) Adopted children inherit as full children under intestacy; stepchildren (not legally adopted) inherit NOTHING; (8) A cohabiting partner — however long the relationship — receives nothing. This point cannot be overstated: there is no concept of 'common law marriage' in England and Wales.

Being single and having no immediate family is often cited as a reason not to bother with a will — but it is often precisely the situation where a will matters most: (1) Where does the estate go without a will? A single person with no surviving spouse, no children, no parents, no siblings, no nephews/nieces, no grandparents, and no aunts/uncles will have their estate pass to the Crown as bona vacantia. The Treasury Solicitor administers the estate and all assets go to the government. This happens with surprising frequency — around 500–600 bona vacantia estates are administered each year; (2) If you have any friends, carers, colleagues, charities, or organisations you care about: the only way to ensure they receive anything is a will. Intestacy provides nothing for non-family; (3) The Inheritance Act question: a cohabiting partner of a single person with no family is particularly exposed. Without a will, they receive nothing. They must claim under the Inheritance Act 1975 — which requires court proceedings, satisfying the dependency or cohabitation criteria, and persuading the court that their claim should succeed. There is no certainty of outcome; (4) Digital assets and instructions: a will (or accompanying letter of wishes) is the only way to leave instructions for the management of digital assets — online accounts, cryptocurrency, social media profiles, cloud storage; (5) Funeral wishes: a will can record burial or cremation preferences. Without instructions, whoever administers the estate (or the local authority if no one comes forward) makes these decisions; (6) Avoiding intestacy delays: with no obvious next of kin, obtaining Letters of Administration for an intestate estate can be extremely slow — the court may require extensive genealogical tracing before administration can proceed. A will with named executors avoids this entirely.

No — it is never too early to make a will. The misconception that wills are 'for old people' or 'for when you are ill' is one of the most expensive in estate planning: (1) You can die at any age: death is not correlated with age in every case. Accidents, illness, and sudden cardiac events occur at all ages. If you have assets, a partner, or anyone who depends on you, a will is immediately relevant; (2) Getting married or becoming a parent triggers immediate need: marriage revokes your existing will under WA 1837 s.18 — a problem if you made one before the marriage. Having a child triggers the need for a guardian appointment under CA 1989 s.5 — the moment you have a child, the question of who would care for them if you died becomes critical; (3) Cohabiting: if you are living with a partner to whom you are not married, you need a will immediately. The absence of a will leaves your partner with nothing; (4) First property purchase: when you own significant assets for the first time, you need to consider who should receive them; (5) Cost: a WillSafe UK will from £35 is a negligible cost relative to the protection it provides. There is no reason to delay; (6) A will made in your 20s and kept up to date is better than a will made in your 70s when circumstances are more complex. A will can always be updated or replaced — the key is to have one in place; (7) For comparison — the equivalent question for a 25-year-old with a mortgage, a cohabiting partner of 3 years, and a dog: without a will, if they die tomorrow, their partner inherits nothing from the property (which passes to parents under intestacy), nothing from the savings, and may lose the right to keep the dog. A £35 will prevents all of this.