Writing a will is one of those jobs that sits on the to-do list for years, then suddenly feels urgent. Most people focus their energy on deciding who gets what. Far fewer stop to think carefully about who will actually make that happen. Choosing an executor is arguably just as important as deciding on your…
Writing a will in Scotland isn’t quite the same process as it is south of the border, and that surprises a lot of people. Scots law has its own rules on inheritance, its own protections for spouses and children, and its own quirks around property and moveable assets. If you’re putting off writing a will…
Nobody likes thinking about their own mortality, and that’s probably why so many of us put off making a will. But if you die without a valid will in Scotland, your estate doesn’t simply pass to whoever you’d have wanted it to. Instead, it’s distributed according to a set of rules known as the law…
If you asked ten people in Glasgow whether they have a will, most would probably admit they’ve been meaning to get round to it. It’s one of those jobs that sits quietly at the bottom of the to-do list, usually because nobody likes thinking about their own mortality, and because “sorting out a will” sounds…
Losing someone close to you is hard enough without a family disagreement breaking out over what happens next. But it does happen, more often than people expect, and when it does, one question tends to come up early: can the estate still be finalised while the dispute is going on, or does everything grind to…
When someone dies in Scotland, most families assume the executor named in the will simply gets on with things. In practice, that isn’t always what happens. An executor might be unwell, living abroad, overwhelmed by grief, or quietly reluctant to take on the responsibility at all. Sometimes there’s more than one executor, and they can’t…
Losing someone close to you is hard enough without having to untangle the legal and financial aspects. Yet almost every family in Scotland ends up asking the same question sooner or later: when will the money actually reach the people who are due to inherit? It’s a fair question, and honestly, one that doesn’t always…
When someone dies, the person left in charge of their affairs – usually a family member named as executor – often has no idea where to start. One of the first questions that comes up, again and again, is whether they need something called confirmation before they can touch a bank account, sell a house,…
When someone dies, their family is often left dealing with grief and paperwork at the same time, and one of the first practical jobs is working out what the estate is actually worth. This matters more than people expect. The total value of the estate determines whether inheritance tax is due, what kind of confirmation…
When someone dies, it’s rarely just the grief that families are left to deal with. There’s a practical side too, and for whoever has been named as executor, that often means untangling exactly what the deceased owed before anything can be handed out to beneficiaries. It’s a question we’re asked constantly at Family Lawyers Glasgow:…