You should review your will after any major life change, such as a marriage, a divorce, a birth or a death, and at least once every five years in any case. One point catches people out more than any other. In England and Wales, getting married automatically cancels an existing will, so a marriage always calls for a fresh one.
People tend to think of a will as a job done once and then forgotten. You make it, you put it somewhere safe, and you get on with your life. I understand the appeal of that. But a will is written to fit your life as it stands on the day you sign it, and lives have a way of moving on. Children arrive. Marriages happen, and sometimes they end. Houses are bought and sold. The people you named all those years ago are not always the people you would choose today.
A will that no longer matches your life can be worse than useless, because everyone assumes it is doing its job right up until the day it fails to. So let me walk you through when it is worth taking your will down off the shelf and reading it again.
Life events that should prompt a review
You do not need to touch your will every year, and I would not want you fretting about it. But certain events change the picture enough that your will should be looked at properly. Here are the ones I see most often.
You get married or enter a civil partnership
This is the big one, and the one hardly anyone knows about. In England and Wales, getting married or entering a civil partnership automatically revokes any will you already have. The old will is simply cancelled by the marriage. There is one exception, which is where the will was made "in contemplation" of that particular marriage and says so on its face. Short of that, the moment you marry, you are back to having no will at all, and the intestacy rules decide who inherits. I have met more than one newlywed who was quietly horrified to learn that the careful will they made years earlier had been wiped out by their own wedding day.
You divorce or separate
Divorce works quite differently, and the distinction matters. A divorce does not cancel your will. What it does is treat your former spouse as though they had died before you. So any gift you left them fails, and if you named them as an executor, they can no longer act. That sounds tidy enough, but it often leaves a will half working. If your ex was your main beneficiary and your sole executor, large parts of your will may now do nothing at all, and the estate can fall into places you never intended. Separation, where you are not yet divorced, changes nothing in law, so an estranged spouse you have not divorced still inherits under an old will. That surprises people too.
A new child or grandchild arrives
A birth is a happy reason to revisit your will. You may want to appoint guardians for young children, set aside something for a new grandchild, or make sure your wording covers children who came along after the will was written. Older wills sometimes name each child individually, which quietly leaves out anyone born later.
You buy a home or your wealth changes markedly
If you have bought a house, come into money, or seen the value of what you own rise a good deal, your will deserves another look. A larger estate can bring Inheritance Tax into view, and it may be worth thinking about how your home in particular is dealt with. None of that is a reason to panic, but it is a reason to check.
An executor or beneficiary dies
Wills are written to outlast us, but not always the people named in them. If someone you appointed as an executor has died, or a beneficiary is no longer with us, your will may have a gap in it. Good wills are drafted with substitutes for exactly this reason, but it is worth confirming rather than assuming.
There is a falling-out in the family
Families change, and not always for the better. If you are no longer close to someone you once wanted to benefit, or you have grown close to someone who is not mentioned at all, your will should reflect where things actually stand now rather than where they stood a decade ago.
You move abroad or own property overseas
Moving to another country, or buying a place in the sun, can raise questions your English will was never built to answer. Different countries have their own rules about who must inherit, and those rules do not always bend to a will made here. If this applies to you, it is worth taking advice in both places rather than hoping one will covers everything.
You start a business
Starting or buying into a business adds something valuable and rather particular to your estate. A share in a company does not always pass in the way you would expect, and there can be tax reliefs worth planning around. If you have become a business owner since you last made your will, that alone is reason to sit down and look again.
How often should you review your will
Even when nothing dramatic has happened, I suggest reading your will through every five years or so. It is a decent rhythm. Long enough that you are not forever worrying about it, short enough that it does not quietly drift out of date while your life carries on around it.
Reviewing your will does not mean changing it. More often than not you will read it, nod, and put it back knowing it still says what you want. That small act of checking is worth a great deal of reassurance. If you want a fuller picture of how a will is put together in the first place, I have written a plain guide on how to make a will in the UK that sits alongside this one.
Marriage cancels your will. Divorce does not, but it leaves your ex written out as though they had died first. Two events, two very different outcomes, and almost nobody knows the difference until it is explained.
Updating a will: a codicil or a new will
When a will does need changing, there are two ways to do it, and choosing the right one saves trouble later.
The first is a codicil. A codicil is a short, formal document that sits alongside your existing will and amends it. It has to be signed and witnessed with exactly the same care as the will itself. Codicils are well suited to a small, single change, such as swapping one executor for another or adjusting a modest gift. What you must never do is take a pen to the will you have already signed. Crossing something out or writing in the margin can invalidate the whole thing, and I have seen that go badly wrong.
The second way is simply to make a new will, which revokes the old one. For anything beyond a minor tweak, a fresh will is usually the cleaner choice. Piling several codicils onto an old will leaves a confusing paper trail that an executor has to unpick at the worst possible time. A single, up to date document is far kinder to the people left to deal with it.
How Choice Wills handles updates
One of the reasons I set up our storage service was to make this easy rather than daunting. For an annual fee, we store your will securely and you get unlimited amendments, so you are never putting off a change because of what it might cost to make it. The storage with unlimited amendments is £59.99 a year for a single will. When life shifts, you pick up the phone, we make the change, and it is done.
If you are due a review, or you have had one of the life events above and are not sure where your will now stands, do get in touch and we can go through it together. You can also read more about the will writing service if you are starting from scratch. The first conversation is free, and there is rarely any harm in checking.
Common questions
Does getting married cancel my will?
Yes. In England and Wales, getting married or entering a civil partnership automatically revokes any existing will, unless that will was made in contemplation of the marriage. If you marry and do not make a new will, you are treated as having died without one, and the intestacy rules decide who inherits.
Does divorce affect my will?
Divorce does not revoke your will, but it changes how it works. Your former spouse is treated as if they had died before you, so any gift to them fails and they cannot act as your executor. If they were the main beneficiary, parts of your will may no longer do what you intended, so it should be reviewed.
How often should I review my will?
As a rule of thumb, read your will through every five years, and always after a major life change such as a marriage, a divorce, a birth or a death. Reviewing it does not mean you have to change it. Often you will simply confirm it still says what you want.
What is a codicil?
A codicil is a short, formal document that amends an existing will. It must be signed and witnessed with the same care as the will itself. Codicils suit small, single changes. For anything substantial it is usually cleaner to make a fresh will instead.
Can I update my will myself?
You should never alter a signed will by crossing things out or writing in the margin, as that can invalidate it. Any change must be made by a properly signed and witnessed codicil, or by a new will. It is worth having it done properly so it holds up when it matters.