The recent case of a primary school teacher who left more than £1m to charity illustrates the importance of putting a Will in place and the opportunities that it provides to allow you to leave your estate to those who will most benefit.
Miss Dickson, a 72 year old former primary teacher and police office never married and had no children. She had invested wisely and left sums to various charities, friends and relatives, as specified in her Will. However, if she died without leaving a Will, her whole estate would have passed to her remoter relatives according to the Law of Intestate Succession (which applies where there is no Will). In leaving a Will, Miss Dickson was able to pass her estate to friends, close relatives and a number of charities.
According to Remember A Charity UK, 35% of people in the UK say that they would leave a legacy to a charity in their Will if their family and friends have been provided for. If you do wish to leave money to charity, it is important that this is specified in your Will otherwise your Executors are under no obligation to pay any sums to charities or organisations that you have supported during your lifetime.
Your Will is a very personal document; tailored to your own circumstances. There are a number of options if you do wish to include charities in your Will:-
- You can leave specific items such as household contents, books, musical instruments, artwork, investments etc. or a fixed sum of money to whichever beneficiaries you wish such as specific individuals, charities or other organisations.
- If you know that you want to leave a fixed amount, say, £5,000 to a particular type of charity or charities (children’s or cancer charities for instance), you can leave such a legacy and state that it would be for your Executors’ to use their discretion in deciding which charity or charities should benefit.
- If you wish to leave your whole estate to a charity or charities, that is to say your estate less any debts, legacies and expenses incurred, you can do so. Again, there is the flexibility to include one or more charities and divide the amounts between them however you like.
- One final option to consider if you are interested in leaving your estate to charity would be to set up your own Charitable Trust under your Will which would commence upon your death. This would allow you to stipulate the charitable purposes and how you wished your money to be used following your death.
Often charities can merge or change names so your Executors must be able to identify the intended charitable beneficiary or another charity with similar charitable purposes to enable them to pay over any bequests made under a Will.
One final point to note is that in Scotland, a spouse/civil partner and the children of a deceased person are entitled to make a claim on the estate known as Legal Rights, notwithstanding the terms of a Will. The Legal Rights are calculated using the net moveable estate - the value of all assets except houses and land, less any debts, funeral expenses and other liabilities, and the entitlement will depend on whether there is a surviving spouse/civil partner or children.
We write Wills for all types of clients with varying requests, including those who wish to leave money to individuals, charities and other organisations. Please contact a member of our team if you wish to discuss putting a Will in place or would like to know more about Legal Rights.
Read the original article in the Herald here.
