Do You Need a Will UK? The £322,000 Question

Do you need a will UK? The honest answer is "it depends" - and the variables that decide it are whether you are married, whether you have children, whether you own property, and whether you have an opinion about who gets your money when you die. Most articles on this question start from "yes you should" and proceed to sell you the form. This one walks through what the law actually does if you do nothing, then lets you decide.

The headline number is £322,000. That is the statutory legacy: the amount your surviving spouse or civil partner gets off the top of your estate if you die without a will and leave children behind. The figure has been £322,000 since 26 July 2023, set by the Administration of Estates Act 1925 (Fixed Net Sum) Order 2023. Below the line, the rules of intestacy take over. Above it, things get messier. And if you are not married, none of this protects your partner at all.

Contents

• What happens if you die without a will in the UK
• The £322,000 statutory legacy, explained with numbers
• The cohabiting-partner trap nobody tells you about
• When you genuinely do not need a will yet
• When you absolutely do need one
• How much does it cost to write a will UK
• DIY vs solicitor: which route is right for you
• Pair your will with a Lasting Power of Attorney
• Frequently Asked Questions

What Happens if You Die Without a Will in the UK

Dying without a will is called dying intestate. When you do, the rules of intestacy decide who inherits. These are statutory rules set out in the Administration of Estates Act 1925 and updated periodically. They do not care what you would have wanted. They do not read your group chat. They follow a fixed family tree and they distribute the estate in a fixed order.

In England and Wales the hierarchy runs roughly like this:

1. Spouse or civil partner. Gets a chunk off the top, plus personal possessions, plus a share of the rest depending on whether children survive.
2. Children (or grandchildren, if children died before you). Take whatever is left after the spouse's share, or the whole estate if there is no spouse.
3. Parents. Only inherit if there is no spouse and no children.
4. Brothers and sisters of the full blood (or their children). Only if no parents survive.
5. Half-blood siblings, grandparents, aunts and uncles, then the Crown if nobody else exists.

What is conspicuously not on that list: your partner if you are not married. Your stepchildren. The friend who would actually use the money sensibly. Whatever charity you care about. The state's default cares about marriage and blood. If your life does not look like that, intestacy is going to disappoint you. (Scotland has separate intestacy rules under the Succession (Scotland) Act 1964. Northern Ireland's rules are also different. The figures and order below are for England and Wales.)

The £322,000 Statutory Legacy, Explained with Numbers

The bit most articles wave at without numbers is the statutory legacy. This is the fixed sum your surviving spouse or civil partner takes off the top of your estate if you also leave children behind. The current figure is £322,000, applying to deaths on or after 26 July 2023. The Lord Chancellor reviews it when CPI rises by 15% or more since the last review, under the Inheritance and Trustees' Powers Act 2014.

Here is how the maths actually works for an estate of £500,000, with a spouse and two children surviving:

1. Personal chattels (furniture, car, jewellery, personal effects, anything not used for business or investment) go to the spouse. Say these are worth £20,000.
2. The remaining £480,000 is split. The spouse takes the £322,000 statutory legacy off the top.
3. The residue is £480,000 minus £322,000 = £158,000.
4. The residue is divided in half. The spouse gets £79,000 outright. The children share the other £79,000 in equal shares on statutory trust.

So the spouse walks away with £20,000 + £322,000 + £79,000 = £421,000. The two children share £79,000, held on trust until each turns 18. The kids get less than £40,000 each, which arrives at 18 in a single lump.

Two things matter about that picture. First, if your estate is worth less than £322,000 plus the chattels, the spouse gets the lot and the children get nothing under intestacy. (Most UK estates fall under £322,000 once you exclude the house, but the house is part of the estate, so the threshold is met more often than people assume.) Second, the children's £40,000 lump at 18 is exactly the kind of cash a will-maker would normally hold back on trust until 21 or 25. Intestacy does not give you that lever.

If there is a surviving spouse and no children, the spouse gets everything. No statutory legacy maths required. If there are children and no surviving spouse, the children share the whole estate equally, on statutory trust until 18. The £322,000 only matters when both groups exist.

The Cohabiting-Partner Trap Nobody Tells You About

This is the section most will-writing guides bury near the bottom or leave out entirely. England and Wales does not recognise common-law marriage. There is no legal concept of "common-law spouse" no matter how many years you have lived together, shared a mortgage, raised kids, or referred to each other as "my partner" on tax forms. The Office for National Statistics counted 3.6 million cohabiting couple families in the UK in 2023, the fastest-growing family type in the country, and the law treats every single one of them as legal strangers for inheritance purposes.

The consequence is brutal. If a cohabiting partner dies without a will, the surviving partner inherits nothing under intestacy. Zero. The estate passes to children, then parents, then siblings, then more distant blood relatives. The partner does not appear anywhere in the queue. The shared house, if it was held as tenants in common rather than as joint tenants, has its half pulled out of the survivor's grasp and given to the deceased's blood relatives. Joint bank accounts pass to the survivor by survivorship, but anything in the deceased's sole name does not.

The fallback is a court claim under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. A cohabiting partner can apply for "reasonable financial provision" if they were living with the deceased as if married for the two years before death. The court weighs the length and nature of the relationship, the partner's financial needs, the size of the estate, and the strength of competing claims. It can grant a lump sum, a transfer of property, or income. It does not have to grant anything.

The price tag for going to court starts at five figures and runs to six. Solicitor fees, barrister fees, the risk of paying the other side's costs if you lose. Years of emotional damage on top. All of it avoidable by a will that took an hour to write and cost between zero and a few hundred pounds.

Worked example. Sarah and Jack have lived together for 20 years in a house Jack owns in his sole name (he bought it before they met). They have no children. Jack dies suddenly without a will. Under intestacy, the house passes to Jack's surviving parents, who he had not spoken to in a decade. Sarah has 30 days to leave. Her options are: (1) bring an Inheritance Act claim against the parents, costing £30,000+ and 18 months of litigation, or (2) accept the situation and move out. A two-page will leaving the house to Sarah would have cost Jack £150 at a solicitor and avoided every minute of this.

If you are cohabiting and you read only one paragraph of this article, that was the one. Write a will this month.

When You Genuinely Do Not Need a Will Yet

"Every adult needs a will" is overstated as conventional wisdom. There are situations where the intestacy default is good enough, and the article should say so.

You probably do not need a will yet if:

• You are single, with no children, no property, no business interests, and your estate consists of a current account, a small ISA, and a phone. Intestacy will route it to your parents (or siblings if your parents have died), which is probably what you would have done anyway. The form is cheap insurance against the £4,000 LISA going somewhere you would not have chosen, but it is not urgent.
• You are married or in a civil partnership, you and your spouse have no children, and you both want the survivor to get everything. Intestacy already does this. A will gives you more control over what happens after the second death, but the first-death outcome is fine.
• You are happy with the statutory hierarchy and your family looks exactly like it.

The honest answer for a single 25-year-old with £4,000 in a LISA, renting a flat, and no dependants is "not yet". Revisit when you buy property, move in with a partner, have a child, or accumulate enough that the £40,000-at-18 problem for kids would actually bite. The decision is when, not whether.

That said, "not yet" is doing a lot of work. The cost of being wrong is borne by the people you leave behind. The cost of writing a basic will when you might not need it is one Sunday afternoon and somewhere between zero and £200. If you have any doubt at all, it is the cheap option.

When You Absolutely Do Need One

Intestacy is structurally wrong for a much longer list of situations than the "skip it" list. If any of the following apply, do not put this off:

• You are cohabiting and not married (see the section above - this is the single highest-leverage will in the UK).
• You have minor children. A will is where you appoint guardians; without it, the family courts decide who raises your kids if both parents die. The Children Act 1989 will sort it out, but the people doing the sorting will not be you.
• You have children from a previous relationship. Intestacy splits the estate between the current spouse and all biological children, in ways that frequently leave stepchildren with nothing. A will is the only way to balance this.
• You own a business or hold a meaningful share of one - business succession needs to be drafted, not left to the intestacy hierarchy.
• You want to leave money to a charity, a friend, a niece, or anyone outside the immediate blood family. Intestacy will not do this. You have to write it down.
• Your estate is over £325,000 and inheritance tax will bite. A will lets you use trusts, gift planning, and the residence nil-rate band (an extra £175,000 of IHT-free allowance for the main home passing to direct descendants, frozen until April 2030). Without a will, you cannot direct the residence to children or grandchildren as efficiently. The inheritance tax UK guide covers the full nil-rate band mechanics.
• You want to use a trust to protect a vulnerable beneficiary, hold money back until a later age, or shield assets from divorce or bankruptcy. Intestacy has one trust and it pays out at 18; a will can do anything trust law allows.
• You have life insurance not yet written in trust. A will plus a separate trust deed lets the payout sit outside the estate. The life insurance in trust UK guide explains the IHT-free trick.
• You want your kids to inherit during your lifetime instead of waiting until you die. A will is not the only tool here, but it sits in the same conversation; the generational wealth article makes the case for "£100k at 25 beats £500k at 60" and the legal scaffolding overlaps.

If you ticked any of those, the right time to write your will was last year. The next best time is this weekend.

How Much Does It Cost to Write a Will UK

The price ranges from genuinely free to four figures depending on the route. The cheap end gets you a valid document. The expensive end gets you tailored advice and a witness who can defend the will if it is later challenged.

Will Aid (November, free). Will Aid is a UK charity scheme that runs every November. Participating solicitors waive their will-writing fee in exchange for a suggested donation to charity (around £100 for a single will, £180 for a couple's mirror wills). You get a properly drafted solicitor-written will and the charity gets the donation. If you can wait until November and the timing works, this is one of the highest-leverage offers in UK personal finance.

Online will services (£90-£200). Farewill, Co-op Legal Services, and similar platforms guide you through a structured online questionnaire and produce a will reviewed by their in-house solicitors. Farewill's single-will price is in the region of £100; mirror wills for a couple are typically £150-£200. Co-op Legal Services sits at a similar level. These are good fits for straightforward estates: one home, one or two beneficiaries, no business interests, no blended family complications. Verify pricing on the provider's site before paying; offers move.

High-street solicitor, simple will (£150-£500). A local solicitor or licensed will writer typically charges £150-£300 for a basic single will and £250-£500 for a couple's mirror wills. The legal qualification of the will writer matters here: anyone can call themselves a "will writer" in the UK because the activity is unregulated, but solicitors and members of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) carry professional regulation and indemnity insurance that an unregulated writer does not. If the price gap is small, default to the regulated route.

Complex solicitor will (£500-£2,000+). Trusts for vulnerable beneficiaries, business succession planning, blended families, overseas assets, agricultural property relief, IHT planning above the nil-rate band - all push the price into four figures. The fee is paying for judgment, not typing. If your situation needs it, do not DIY this.

Pure DIY (£0-£30). You can write your own will on a sheet of paper or buy a £20 will-writing kit at WHSmith. The legal requirements (Wills Act 1837) are: (1) in writing, (2) signed by the testator with intent to give effect to it, (3) witnessed by two adults who are not beneficiaries (and whose spouses are not beneficiaries), each signing in the presence of the testator. Pure DIY is risky for any estate with property or trusts because small drafting errors can void clauses, but for a single adult with a tiny estate it is legally valid.

DIY vs Solicitor: Which Route Is Right for You

Four buckets cover most readers:

• For a simple estate (single person, or married couple with everything going to each other then split equally between adult children) an online service or Will Aid is fine. No need for a solicitor.
• Online service or solicitor. You own property and want to use a trust for the kids' inheritance, or you have minor children needing guardians appointed. Online is borderline; a solicitor is the safer call. The fee is £200-£400 once and worth it for the guardian appointment alone.
• Blended family, business, complex assets, or you expect the will to be challenged: solicitor, full stop. Pay the £500-£1,500. The witness role matters as much as the drafting; if a beneficiary later contests, a solicitor's file note about your capacity at the signing is worth its weight in gold.
• Pure DIY. Only if the estate is tiny and the wishes are uncontroversial. A four-figure estate with a single beneficiary can use a paper will and two witnesses. Anything larger or messier needs better drafting.

The Martin Lewis line on will writing is broadly that everyone should have one and the route depends on complexity, which is sensible. The deeper point he tends not to make is that the cohabiting-partner trap means the urgency is different for unmarried couples - they should not wait for the Will Aid month, they should sort it this weekend at whatever price gets it done.

Pair Your Will With a Lasting Power of Attorney

A will deals with what happens when you die. A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) deals with what happens if you lose mental capacity but are still alive. These are two separate documents handling two separate problems, and most people who need one need the other.

Without an LPA, no one has automatic legal authority over your finances if you lose capacity. Not your spouse. Not your civil partner. Definitely not your cohabiting partner. The fallback is Deputyship through the Court of Protection: £421 application fee, £320 a year in supervision fees, plus solicitor costs, plus months of waiting while the bank account is frozen.

The lifetime version of the cohabiting trap is exactly the same shape as the death version. A 20-year unmarried partner cannot operate your bank account or sell your house if you have a stroke and cannot do it yourself. The £92 LPA fee solves it. The full breakdown is in the Lasting Power of Attorney UK guide.

Most solicitors will bundle a will and a pair of LPAs at a discount. Most online services offer the same combo. Couples writing matched wills can usually add LPAs to the package for a small extra fee per person. If you are going through the process anyway, the LPAs are the cheapest possible add-on.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who inherits without a will in the UK?

In England and Wales, the rules of intestacy run in this order: surviving spouse or civil partner first (with a £322,000 statutory legacy off the top if children also survive, plus half the residue and personal chattels), then children, then parents, then siblings of the full blood, then half-blood siblings, then grandparents, then aunts and uncles, and finally the Crown if nobody else exists. Unmarried partners, stepchildren, friends, and charities inherit nothing under intestacy regardless of how close the relationship was. Scotland and Northern Ireland have separate rules. The current £322,000 statutory legacy applies to deaths on or after 26 July 2023, set by the Administration of Estates Act 1925 (Fixed Net Sum) Order 2023.

Will for dementia patients - is it still possible?

Only if the person still has testamentary capacity at the moment of signing. UK law applies the test from Banks v Goodfellow (1870) and the Mental Capacity Act 2005: the person must understand the nature of making a will, the extent of their estate, and the claims they ought to consider. Early-stage dementia does not automatically disqualify someone; mid-to-late dementia usually does. The practical safeguard is the golden rule: if a will is being made by someone with a known capacity risk, a solicitor should have the person assessed by a doctor and record the capacity opinion alongside the will. Without that record, the will can be challenged after death. If capacity has already been lost, the only route is to apply to the Court of Protection for a statutory will to be made on the person's behalf, which is slow and expensive.

What is the golden rule when making a will?

The "golden rule" is the practical safeguard articulated by Mr Justice Templeman in Kenward v Adams (1975): when a will is being made by an elderly person, by someone seriously ill, or by anyone where capacity could later be questioned, the will should be witnessed or approved by a medical practitioner who has formally assessed capacity and recorded the assessment. It is not a strict legal requirement but failing to follow it leaves the will open to challenge after death. The rule exists because by the time capacity is in dispute, the person who could explain their state of mind is no longer available to be questioned.

How much is a will without a solicitor?

Between zero and around £200. Will Aid runs every November and produces solicitor-drafted wills in exchange for a suggested charity donation (£100 single, £180 couple). Online services like Farewill and Co-op Legal Services charge roughly £90-£200 for a single will and a bit more for mirror wills. A WHSmith will-writing kit costs around £15-£30. A pure handwritten will on a sheet of paper costs nothing provided you meet the Wills Act 1837 requirements (signed by you, witnessed by two non-beneficiary adults). The catch with pure DIY is that small drafting errors can void clauses or invalidate the whole will - low-cost is not the same as low-risk when your estate is anything other than tiny.

Who is the next of kin if there is no will?

There is no single legal definition of "next of kin" in UK law that gives one person automatic authority. For inheritance under intestacy, the order is spouse or civil partner first, then children, then parents, then siblings. For applying to administer the estate (taking out letters of administration instead of probate), the same order applies. For medical purposes, hospitals will identify a next of kin for informal updates but this carries no legal authority. Cohabiting partners are not next of kin for inheritance even after decades together. If you want a specific person to handle your affairs, you have to name them: as an executor in a will, as an attorney in an LPA, or as your designated medical contact in an Advance Decision.

What not to do immediately after someone dies?

The practical short list. Do not distribute any of the deceased's assets, transfer their bank balances, or hand out their possessions until probate (or letters of administration if there is no will) is granted. Do not cancel direct debits or close accounts until you have a full picture of what comes in and out. Do not throw away paperwork, especially anything that looks like a will, insurance policy, share certificate, or pension statement. Do not let pressure from family members rush decisions about funeral arrangements that the executor has not yet authorised. Do not promise specific items to specific people before the estate has been valued; in an intestate estate, the distribution is governed by statute, not by anyone's verbal commitments. Do register the death within five days (eight in Scotland) and get a Tell Us Once appointment to notify government departments in one go.

Educational only, not legal or financial advice. This article is general information about UK intestacy rules, will writing, and estate planning. It is not legal advice and is not a substitute for advice from a regulated solicitor. The figures and statutes cited are current at the time of writing (see lastUpdated); tax thresholds, statutory legacy levels, and court fees can change. For your own situation - especially anything involving trusts, blended families, business assets, IHT planning, or a contested estate - speak to a solicitor regulated by the SRA or a STEP-qualified will writer.