Components Of A Will – Types Of Gifts
Read More About:
Want to make a start on your will?
Making a Will is not about wealth it is about making sure that what you want to happen to your estate does happen. It gives you the opportunity to specify such things as who will administer your estate, who will care for your children and who will receive specific items of your property.
Gifts in a will are referred to as legacies. There are a number of different types.
Specific Legacies
It is possible to gift a particular asset to a certain person.
For instance, you may wish to leave your car to your son. If so, it should be clearly stated. For example, ‘I give my Mercedes registration no. ABC 123 to my son Fred.’ Likewise you can leave the money in a designated account by stating, ‘I give the money standing to the credit of my account no. 1234 at XYZ bank to my niece Jane.
Note that if it is likely you will change a specified asset such as a car during your lifetime it is far better to say, ‘I give any car which I own at my death to my son.’
Such a gift is known as a specific legacy. If the car has been sold during your lifetime, the intended recipient will receive nothing.
The costs of transferring such a gift to the beneficiary are borne by the beneficiary unless you specify otherwise.
To avoid this you should state the gift to be ‘free of costs of delivery’. If you leave a house to one beneficiary, then the costs of insuring it and transferring it to him will be payable by him unless you specify otherwise.
It is also important to specify whether or not your estate is to be responsible for paying off any remaining mortgage on the property.
Sometimes when a beneficiary receives a valuable specific legacy, the gift is stated to bear its own tax. The general rule is that inheritance tax is payable out of residue.If the testator feels that a particularly valuable gift should bear its own tax, the words ‘and I direct that this gift shall bear its own tax in exoneration of my residuary estate’ should be used.
Want to know more – Components Of A Will – Monetary Legacies or Components Of A Will – More On Gifts In A Will
- external sites: Wills – Solicitors Wills :: Pindoria Solicitors Limited