Cost of a Will

The true cost of a Will

The cost of a will is an extremely important point to take into consideration when you are looking to make this most important of documents. You want to ensure that you are paying enough for a professional service, but at the same time there are those who will gladly overcharge you for drafting a will.

Of course, the price you pay for a Will depends on how you intend to have it created. There are a wide variety of different ways to have your Will drafted and this means that the price of a Will can vary wildly. It’s important to realise when looking to create a Will that paying £10 for a DIY Wills template is a very different prospect from paying £200 to a solicitor – while the former is clearly far cheaper, it’s because the level of customisation and the amount of expertise that is going into the creation of your Will is far less than with a more expensive service.

Therefore, rather than ask “How much does a Will cost?”, the real question is how much the various methods used for creating a Will are likely to set you back.

DIY Wills

DIY Wills, as the name suggests, involve you putting together the Will yourself. Rather than writing it from scratch, of course, DIY Wills sites or kits will provide you with a template for a basic Will, allowing you to fill out your details and circumstances and create the Will yourself.

DIY Wills can be great if your affairs will not be too complicated to put into order, and if you are confident in your own ability to fill out the template properly. While you won’t need to throw in legal jargon or anything complicated of that nature, you do need to take a little time to understand what you are doing.

A DIY Will will usually cost you around £30, and here at Law on the Web we offer a fantastic Wills Pack with a detailed guide to filling it out for just £24.95.

Will creation software

Will creation software is similar to a DIY Wills pack, using a pre-formed template into which your details are entered. The difference in this case is that your details are inserted into the template via an automated process which then outputs a completed Will for you to sign.

You may start the process by filling out a form on a website, or you might be using a piece of software which guides you through the different sections of the Will and helps you to choose which parts are relevant to your situation and which are not. This kind of Will creation calls for less effort on your part, though you must be careful to check over your Will afterwards to ensure it makes sense.

The cost of a Will created through this method can vary greatly, since there are varying degrees of complexity in terms of the program or site you may use. However, they will still generally be cheaper than having an individual produce a Will for you. You might even find some as cheap as £10, though anything which guides you through the process properly is liable to cost more.

Will writers

Will Writers will create a Will for you which will be completely tailored to your needs (although some of them do use templates as a base, but likely know how to modify them as appropriate). This is a cheaper route than having a solicitor put together your Will, but there are no qualifications necessary to call yourself a Will writer and they do not have the insurance that solicitors do. Will writers can charge anywhere from £50 - £150 for the creation of a Will, and will offer various services alongside it.

Wills solicitors

Solicitors are the ultimate way to make a Will, with legal expertise and knowledge you can rely upon. Of course, for the level of service you can expect a similar bill. It’s hard to say exactly how much a solicitor will charge – it is dependent on their expertise and exactly what you require from them – but on average, your Will could cost around £200. Many solicitors charge by the hour, so your fee may be dependent on how long it takes to sort through your affairs.

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