Making a Will for Your Properties

Property After Death: Making a Will for Your Properties

When you own a property, there are a lot of legal issues you need to consider. What will happen to your property when you die is just one thing you really need to think about.

Are you planning on passing the property onto your children when you’re gone? If so, creating a will for your properties is going to be essential. Here, you’ll discover everything you need to know about property after death, and the importance of making a will.

Why is a will important?

If you own a property and you want to ensure it is left to your children or partner, a will is absolutely essential. If you don’t have one, what happens to the property when you die will depend upon local intestacy rules.

Although the rules can be complicated, generally speaking if you don’t have a will and you aren’t married or in a civil partnership, your partner won’t get the house. Instead, it will be split between a set hierarchy of your blood relatives.

If you’re married but you’ve separated from your partner, without a will the property would first go to them and not your blood relatives. So, if you’re adamant you want your children, and not your partner, to inherit the property, this absolutely needs to be written into the will.

How should you make a will for your properties?

When making a will for your properties, you’ll first need to work out who you want to benefit. It’s important to take into account any debts that are currently secured upon the home that will need to be paid back, along with inheritance tax.

You will also need to think about whether you would like the property to be split between more than one person. If so, will it be an equal split, or would you prefer one person to own a larger share to get more of the profits? You need to be absolutely specific when writing down who will inherit the property, and whether it needs to be shared.

A useful section to add to the will covers this question; who do you want to benefit from the property if your first chosen beneficiary dies before you? For example, you may initially want to leave the property to your partner. However, if they die you’ll want your children to have the house. Without this mentioned in the will, your children could end up with nothing.

Don’t forget to include the contents of the property

When you’re creating the will, don’t forget to add the contents of the property into it. Just stating that you want the property to be passed to a loved one won’t guarantee they’ll get the contents inside. So, make a list of all of the assets and belongings in the home, and decide who you want those to go to. Again, remember to be as specific as possible in your request.

Of course, you can avoid the potential hassle of passing on the property by selling it before you die. That way, you won’t have to worry about inheritance tax deductions.