When did you last look at your Will? If you are like most people, the honest answer is either “not for years” or “I don’t actually have one”. Neither answer is unusual, and neither is anything to be embarrassed about. But both can quietly create serious problems for the people you care about most.
Our estate planning partner, Kinherit, recently shared a striking statistic with us. Of the Wills their STEP-qualified estate planners review, only around 1 in 7 needs no action at all. In other words, roughly six out of every seven Wills they see contain something that needs updating, correcting or rethinking. For busy professionals, business owners and contractors, whose financial lives tend to be more complex than most, the odds of a hidden gap are even higher.
The good news is that spotting these gaps is straightforward when you know what to look for. Kinherit has distilled years of estate planning experience into a short review built around seven questions. Advisers across the UK use it in client meetings, and we think every Broadbench client should know what those questions are, because they are the fastest way to work out whether your own affairs are genuinely in order.
The Three Questions That Matter Most
Three questions sit at the heart of any estate review, and they are the quickest way to spot foreseeable problems before they happen.
1. Do you have a valid Will?
Without a Will, the law decides who inherits your estate through the rules of intestacy, and those rules take no account of your actual wishes. Unmarried partners have no automatic right to inherit, no matter how long you have been together. Stepchildren are not recognised. Business interests can end up in the wrong hands. A valid Will is the foundation of everything else.
2. When was your Will last reviewed?
This is the question that catches most people out. A Will is not a one-off document; it is a snapshot of your life at the moment you signed it. Marriage, divorce, new children or grandchildren, a house purchase, changes to your business, or a significant shift in your assets can all leave a Will out of step with reality. As a rule of thumb, any Will that has not been reviewed in the last five years, or since a major life event, is due a check.
3. Do you have Lasting Powers of Attorney in place?
This is the piece of planning most often missing altogether. A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) lets people you trust make decisions on your behalf if illness or injury leaves you unable to make them yourself. Many people assume their spouse or family could simply step in; in fact, without an LPA, no one, not even a husband or wife, has automatic legal authority to manage your finances or make healthcare decisions for you. Your family would instead face a slow and costly application to the Court of Protection, at what is already a difficult time.
There are two types of LPA: one covering property and financial affairs, and one covering health and welfare. Because real situations tend to involve both money and care decisions at the same time, having both in place is strongly recommended.
The Supporting Questions
Beyond the big three, a thorough estate review digs a little deeper, and these questions are just as revealing.
Where is your Will stored, and who knows how to find it?
A perfectly drafted Will is little use if your executors cannot locate it. If your family would have to hunt through drawers, filing cabinets and old email accounts, the estate process can be significantly delayed and complicated.
If you died today, would your estate pass to the right people in the right proportions?
This question deserves genuine thought rather than a reflex “yes”. Blended families, cohabiting partners, new dependants, business interests and assets held overseas all have a habit of complicating what looks simple on the surface.
Is anyone in your family in a vulnerable position?
Perhaps a beneficiary who is very young, elderly, living with a disability or mental health condition, inexperienced with money, or going through a relationship breakdown. Vulnerability is not an edge case; bereavement, illness and loss of capacity touch every family eventually. Good planning, sometimes including trust structures, can make sure an inheritance protects a vulnerable loved one rather than exposing them.
Is there any reason to act sooner rather than later?
Health concerns, cognitive changes or upcoming life events can all narrow the window in which planning changes can be made. Wishes can only be formalised while you have the capacity to formalise them.
Why Your Broadbench Adviser Asks These Questions
You may notice these topics coming up in conversations with your Broadbench adviser, and there is a good reason for that. Under the FCA’s Consumer Duty, advisers are expected to take reasonable steps to understand vulnerability, avoid foreseeable harm and deliver good outcomes at every stage of the advice relationship. Estate planning sits squarely within that responsibility. When we ask about your Will, your LPAs and your family circumstances, we are not straying off topic; we are making sure the wealth and protection we have helped you build actually reaches the people you intend it to.
It is also why we partner with Kinherit rather than attempting to do everything ourselves. Just as you come to Broadbench for specialist advice on protection and mortgages, estate planning deserves specialist attention of its own. Kinherit is a law firm whose estate planners are qualified with STEP, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners, the gold standard in the field. More than 4,000 advisers across the UK partner with them, and every Will review they carry out is handled by a STEP-qualified estate planner.
A Complimentary Will Review for Broadbench Clients
Here is the practical takeaway. If your Will has not been reviewed in the last five years, or if your circumstances have changed since it was written, Kinherit offers a complimentary Will review through our partnership. A qualified estate planner will look at what you have in place, explain in plain English whether it still does what you want it to do, and set out any options if it does not. And remember, around 1 in 7 Wills reviewed needs no action at all; if yours is one of them, you gain something equally valuable: certainty.
If you do not yet have a Will or LPAs, there is no better prompt than this article to change that. It is one of those tasks that feels easy to postpone, right up until the moment it cannot be done at all.
Run through the seven questions above with your own circumstances in mind. If even one answer gives you pause, speak to your Broadbench adviser or visit our Kinherit page, and we will connect you with Kinherit’s estate planning team. A short conversation now can spare your family months of difficulty later, and make sure everything you have worked for ends up exactly where you intend.
Broadbench partners with Kinherit for Wills, trusts and estate planning. Kinherit is a law firm specialising in Wills, Trusts, Lasting Powers of Attorney and estate planning, with STEP-qualified estate planners.
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