The Self-help Guide to Making Your Will [Paperback]

'I've set out some of the things a solicitor would tell you if you could afford to pay for the time it would take.'

This book follows a logical step-by-step approach covering the broad ranging matters to be considered when making out a UK last will and testament.

The decision as to whether or not you make a will is the decision as to whether you or the State shall decide who will inherit your hard earned wealth and control the upbringing of your children after your death.

In this book, which is the result of almost forty years experience gained from practising as a family solicitor, I have tried to deal with the many and wideranging matters you will need to consider when making your will and to give not only general advice but also specific advice in relation to situations which are likely to arise and to provide specimen wills and clauses for completion in respect of each of them.

Amongst other matters dealt with are the reasons for making or revising your will, the technicalities involved, inheritance tax and tax saving by your will, the clauses I recommend you include and clauses I recommend you do not include, avoiding challenges to your will, international elements affrecting your will and associated matters such as Living Wills, Enduring Powers of Attorney and the safekeeping of your will.

The book is primarily for the non-lawyer and written in plain English using as few legal terms as possible and includes a glossary to explain any that are used. I have tried to make it as easy to use as possible and included a full index to enable you to find what you are looking for. It is a companion book to my book Death and Probate - a self-help guide to managing the procedures yourself and I hope that you will find both of them to be useful and very cost effective.

If you want to prepare your own will this book will prove invaluable. It will alert you to the many and broad ranging matters you should consider, and covers formal, factual and legal requirements and technicalities. Gordon Bowley draws on his thirty years of experience as a family solicitor to suggest the best and most effective ways to 'have your last say'. Because this informative book is aimed at lay-people, it is written in plain English rather than using legal terms. Those few terms used are all explained in a glossary. Specimen forms, wills and clauses make it even easier to set up your own will and save a lot of money.

Gordon Bowley practised as a family solicitor for over thirty years with particular experience in the area of wills and probate. This is his second book aimed at helping lay-people understand important legal issues. He is also author of The Self-Help Guide to Managing Death and Probate, publishing April 2003.