Do you need a solicitor to make a Will?
Not necessarily. Not unless you have complicated family arrangements in mind, or you want advice on tricky matters like family trusts or tax planning.
If you have in mind a standard kind of "everything-to-my-nearest/dearest-but-if-he/she-predeceases-me-then everything-to-the-kids" then a DIY Will kit from a high street retailer will do the trick.
W H Smith in Woking had them when we last looked for less than £20.00. A tailor-made one for you from a solicitor will be prettier but will do basically the same job at substantially more cost.
Whatever you do, don't try this yourself at home without any advice at all, kids. The guidance in the DIY kits is generally fine. But if you try to construct your own Will without any professional help at all, the chances are that it won't be valid.
It's not the legal language or punctuation that matters - although it helps. The essential thing to get right is the signature/witnessing process. If you get that wrong, the document won't be a Will, whatever else it is, and is likely to be of little or no legal effect. (Most solicitors, unless physically restrained, will bore you with their stories of DIY Wills that weren't worth the used-envelopes they were written on. Don't dismiss these as urban myths peddled by bitter & self-serving professionals. They are all true.)
One further point to chew on. If you own a house jointly with another person, the ownership documents ("title deeds") may provide that on your death, your share of the house will pass automatically to the surviving owner(s) - irrespective of what your Will says. This is often the case where a house is owned jointly by married couples, but it is not limited to such cases. So you need to coordinate your strategy here. Check out your house deeds before you finalise your Will. The technical terms are "joint tenants of the legal estate" (deceased's share automatically goes to survivor) and "tenants in common of the legal estate" (deceased's share passes according to his/her Will). The arrangement may be changed. Tax strategy sometimes dictates one form of ownership rather than the other. Or there may be personal or strategic reasons why one arrangement would be preferable to another. [And why "tenants"? Interesting question. In this context it has nothing to do with whether the land is freehold or leasehold. Blame William the Conqueror. Things have never really been quite right with English land law since then, but that's a story for another day. ]
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