More than half of UK adults don’t have a will

Unsurprising news from this year’s Standard Life Wills and Trusts Research Report – only 37% of UK adults have a last will and testament. This sinks to around 10% of people aged 35 to 44 and well below ten percent of people under 35. This means that the majority of UK adults will have no say at all in how their possessions are divided in the event of their death.

The widely-respected survey was carried out by YouGov and polled a sample of 2051 adults aged 18 and over from a range of social backgrounds.

Encouragingly, 83% of people who had a last will and testament in place have reviewed it within the last ten years.

The most common reason for not having a will is that the respondent “hasn’t gotten round to it yet” (31%), whereas the second most common responses were a lack of assets and the respondents considering themselves too young (17% each).

Dying without a valid last will and testament makes a hard time even harder for those closest to you. It slows everything down, from the granting of probate to the distribution of your assets. If you have children, the situation is complicated further as guardianship issues can arise if there is no surviving parent or legal guardian.

With makeawillonline.co.uk you can make a fully legal will at your convenience for a fraction of the price of visiting a solicitor. All wills are checked by our expert team for your peace of mind. So if you are one of the 31% of UK adults who simply haven’t got round to making a will, there has never been a better time than right now.