Where to start
If you've never written a will before, start with our pillar guide: how to write a will online in the UK. It takes about ten minutes to read and walks through every decision you'll face when you draft your will — who inherits what, who your executors are, what happens to any children under 18, and how to make the signing legally watertight.
If you already have a will and you're wondering what's next, the usual answer is an LPA. Most people only think about a Lasting Power of Attorney when something goes wrong — a stroke, a dementia diagnosis, an accident. By that point it's too late to set one up. Our guide on LPAs and ordinary powers of attorney explains why.
If you're here because someone has died and you're handling their estate, start with our probate walkthrough. The probate process is slow — four to eight weeks for the Grant, six to twelve months for the full estate — and knowing the steps in advance removes most of the stress.
What we won't tell you
We won't tell you that estate planning is urgent. It usually isn't. What it is, is important — important enough that when you do sit down to write a will it's worth taking an hour to get the details right, rather than clicking through a template in ten minutes and hoping for the best.
We also won't use scare tactics. Every year thousands of UK adults die without a will, and the outcome is rarely catastrophic — it's just not what the person would have chosen. The Intestacy Rules do what they're designed to do, which is distribute your estate to your closest relatives in a fixed order. If that order matches your wishes, you're fine. If it doesn't — say you live with a partner you're not married to, or you want a friend to inherit something, or you have stepchildren you'd like to provide for — a will is how you say so.
A note on sources
Every one of our guides is written by our team and reviewed against UK statute: the Wills Act 1837, the Mental Capacity Act 2005, the Administration of Estates Act 1925, and HMRC's published inheritance tax thresholds. Where we reference court fees we use the current HMCTS schedule; where we reference the OPG we use the Office of the Public Guardian's published registration charge. If any figure looks out of date, please tell us.
We are not a law firm. If your situation is genuinely unusual — trusts for vulnerable beneficiaries, second marriages with children from both sides, business succession, overseas assets — these guides are a starting point, not a substitute for a solicitor.