Five Reasons to Write a Will this New Year
For many people, January is synonymous with making a list of new year’s resolutions, and February is when you realise you’ve already given up on most of them! An American poll from the end of 2020 found that about 1 in four Americans made a resolution for 2020, with the most common being:
- exercising more
- improving their diet
- losing weight
- saving money
The same poll found that common resolutions for 2021 included pursuing career ambitions and charity work. Surprisingly, their poll found that nearly half of their respondents kept at least a few of their resolutions! But, how many of your resolutions did you stick to last year?
Make A Will This New Year
Some resolutions are easier to stick to than others. Usually resolutions that are one-time actions seem easier to accomplish that ongoing resolutions like ‘losing weight’ or ‘eat healthier’. For example, it’s far easier to tick off a resolution like ‘get the car serviced’, ‘buy a new bike’ or ‘swap my broadband provider’ than it is to have to stick to a continuous action.
Why not tick ‘make a will’ off your new year’s resolution list? You might remember we spoke about gifts in wills last year, but that’s not the only reason we’re talking about it again. Whilst we’d love for you to remember us in your will, there are a lot of reasons to write a will. Below, we’ve listed five reasons you should consider writing a will this new year.
1. It’ll save stress for your loved ones
Almost all estates have to go to probate court to start the legal processes, but without a will this can become especially stressful. The court has to appoint an administrator for your estate which is time-consuming at an already difficult time. It also causes unnecessary stress for loved ones as to who is chosen. Writing a will streamlines the entire process and helps you stay in control of what happens next.
When you write a will, you get to choose who executes your wishes. By doing this, you can make the best decision for your loved ones by choosing someone who is ready for the responsibility.
2. You control who gets what
Writing a will means you control who gets what from your estate. This includes splitting the big assets like a house or a car, but also the small things too. You get to decide who inherits the family clock that survived the blitz, your prized record collection you spent your life creating, and what happens to the awful vase you’ve kept in a cupboard for the past decade.
Writing a will also means you can ensure there is provision for people to get the same thing. If you’ve helped one grandchild through university with a small allowance, writing a will can set out the terms to help any younger grandchildren too.
3. Leave a plan for those you’re responsible for
It’s not something anyone wants to think about. But writing a will means you set out what happens to your dependents, both children and animals.
The chance to appoint a guardian means that should the worst happen, you’ll have chosen someone to raise your children in the way you would have wished. This means that you can appoint the best people for the most important task ever.
The same applies for your pets. Writing a will helps make it clear who should look after them, and you can also stipulate an amount of money to help them do so. Keeping a pet isn’t cheap, so you could leave someone enough money to pay for their food and vets bills for the next few years if you’re able.
4. Lower the risk for potential disputes
Have you ever spoken to a close friend or family member and realised they don’t quite have the whole picture about something? Asking your family and friends to guess what your final wishes were can cause problems that last a lifetime. We’ve all heard a rumour about something that started out as something completely different – imagine that on a larger scale at an already difficult time.
History is littered with family disputes over who received specific items when others believe they should have got them instead. An extreme example happened in 1066 after Edward the Confessor died. He didn’t make it clear who he wanted to be the next King, and had at various points, promised England to two different people! A few battles later and Harold Godwinson was dead and William the (now) Conqueror had claimed his inheritance.
It’s an extreme example, but are there things your friends and family might fight over, or even think you’d promised them? It’s easy enough to split the proceeds of a house sale evenly between people. But what about something more sentimental like a piece of jewellery, a family cookbook or even the family Christmas decorations? Writing a will means it’s very clear what you want to happen, and avoids disputes between well-meaning people trying to enact your wishes.
5. Leave a gift to your favourite causes
Throughout our lives, we interact with a vast array of ‘good causes’. Whilst some are more obvious charities like Cancer Research or the RNLI, others are less obvious like education providers, museums or animal sanctuaries. Writing a will gives you the opportunity to leave them a gift in your will, and it doesn’t have to just be to one charity either!
If you were once rescued by a lifeboat and enjoyed free talks at your local museum, you don’t have to decide which cause to support and which to not support. You can leave gifts in your will to multiple charities, and can decide whether you leave your gift as a percentage or a lump sum. For example, you can decide whether to leave a charity £1000, a percentage of your estate (eg. 10%) or a percentage of what’s left over after everything has been allocated.
…So that’s why you’re talking about Wills?
This is the perfect place for us to tell you why you should leave a gift to York St John. But your experiences speak for themselves.
When you attended York St John, your life was changed forever. You met friends for life, experienced the benefits of a higher education and maybe even met your spouse! You learnt things that have stayed with you for life and changed your own life, forever.
We want to continue that same work that positively impacted your life. We want to continue supporting our students, building new facilities and helping the next generation thrive. A gift in your will, no matter how big or small, will help us to do that.
We wouldn’t ask you to do something that we wouldn’t
Leaving a gift in your will might not be something you’ve ever considered, or really heard of before. But we wouldn’t ask something of you that we weren’t prepared to do ourselves.
York St John impacts people’s lives in a multitude of ways, whether as staff or former students. Our first Vice Chancellor, Professor Dianne Willcocks has chosen to leave a gift in her will to York St John.
You can make a real difference by leaving a gift to York St John University...Your gift can help the University continue to open its doors to as many people as possible.
Professor Dianne Willcocks, CBE
You can read more about why Dianne has chosen to leave a gift in her will in our blog post.
Find out more
- Find out how to make your will
- Read some more reasons you should write, or update, you will this new year on the citizens advice website
- Contact us for a confidential chat about leaving a gift to York St John by emailing c.denton@yorksj.ac.uk
