A Will is created to express your wishes at a particular point in time.
You should regularly review your Will as life circumstances change and your Will should accurately reflect your current wishes.
The kind of things that might happen that mean you should review or revise your Will include:
• Marriage;
• Separation or divorce;
• Starting a de facto relationship;
• Having children or grandchildren;
• Your children having remarried or divorced and have extended families;
• Retirement;
• Buying and/or selling assets;
• The executor named in your Will, may have become ill, is unable to handle the responsibility, or has died;
• A beneficiary named in the Will may have died: when writing your Will, it is wise to name substitute beneficiaries;
• Death of spouse;
• The value of legacies diminishing over time: while you may have left a sum of money that seemed significant when you last made your Will, what is it worth in 'today's' dollars?
The interactive Will that iDecide is developing will lead you through these questions to ensure that you cover off all of the necessary requirements for a valid Will.
At iDecide we recommend that you review your Will every five years or whenever you have significant changes to your circumstances such as those described above.