You've Just Bought a House. Now Make Your Will.

Buying a home is the largest financial commitment most people ever make. It is also the point at which the intestacy rules stop being a theoretical problem and start being a very real one. Most of our residential clients don't yet have a will. Most of them assume the property will simply "go to" the person they expect. In many cases it will. In many others, it won't, and the difference is decided by three documents that need to be designed as one piece of work: how you take title, whether you sign a declaration of trust, and what your will says. Get them aligned and the estate runs smoothly. Get them out of alignment and one silently overrides the others.

The Intestacy Rules Do Not Read Your Mind

If you die without a valid will, the intestacy rules decide who inherits. The result rarely matches what people assume. Unmarried partners receive nothing under intestacy, no matter how long the relationship, whether there are children, or whose name is on the mortgage. Married couples with children share the estate on a statutory formula: the surviving spouse takes the personal effects, a statutory legacy (currently £322,000), and half of the residue, with the other half going to the children. On a modest estate that mostly consists of the family home, that formula can force the survivor to sell to pay the children out. The intestacy rules were not designed to produce a sensible outcome for your family. They were designed to produce a predictable outcome for the state.

How You Own the House Decides More Than You Think

If you own the property jointly, the way you hold it decides what your will can and can't do with your share. Joint tenants own the whole property together. On death, the deceased's interest passes automatically to the survivor by the right of survivorship, and the will has no say in it whatsoever. Tenants in common each hold a distinct share, which can be equal or unequal, and each owner can leave their share where they choose in their will.

Most family homes are held as joint tenants by default, because that is what conveyancers tend to select when no one asks the question. That is fine for a straightforward married couple with shared children who intend everything to pass to the survivor. It is a serious problem for anyone who wants their share to go somewhere else, whether to children from a previous relationship, into a trust for asset protection, or to preserve inheritance across the family line.

The Declaration of Trust: Not Optional if the Deposits Aren't Equal

If you are buying as tenants in common with unequal shares, or if the deposit has been contributed unequally, or if family money is involved, a declaration of trust is the document that records the reality. It sets out what each of you contributed, what shares each of you hold, and what happens if one of you wants to sell and the other doesn't. Without one, a dispute about who is entitled to what turns into litigation under the Trusts of Land and Appointment of Trustees Act 1996, which is slow, expensive and rarely satisfying. With one, the same dispute is a five-minute reference to the document that already answered the question.

The declaration of trust also needs to line up with your will. If the declaration says you own 70% of the property and your will leaves "my share of the property" to your children, those two documents need to describe the same asset in the same way. This is not the place for creative interpretation.

Life Interest Trusts: The Standard Answer for Blended Families

The most common wills problem for property clients is the second-marriage or blended-family scenario. One partner wants the survivor to have a home for life. The other partner wants their share of the property to end up with their own children. Left to a simple "everything to my spouse" will, the second-death outcome is decided entirely by the surviving spouse's will, which can be rewritten at any time, and the children of the first-to-die can be left with nothing.

The standard fix is a life interest trust in the will. The surviving spouse has the right to live in the property (and, in some versions, to move to a replacement property of equivalent value) for the rest of their life. The underlying share is held in trust for the deceased's chosen beneficiaries, usually the children of the first marriage, and passes to them on the survivor's death. Spouse exemption from Inheritance Tax still applies on the first death. The survivor is secure. The children can't be cut out. It is a mature, tested structure, and it is exactly the kind of drafting that stops a family being blown apart three years after the funeral.

While We're There, Update the Nominations

Pensions, life policies and death-in-service benefits usually don't pass under a will at all. They follow separate nomination forms, most of which were completed on a first day in a job that ended two employers ago. Buying a house is a good moment to pull those out, check what they say, and update them. A £250,000 death-in-service policy that still names an ex-partner is not a legacy anyone plans to leave.

The Joined-Up Version

When we act for you on a purchase, we ask how you want to hold the property, whether a declaration of trust is appropriate, and whether your will reflects the answer to both. If any of the three is out of step, we fix all three as a single piece of work rather than three separate matters at three separate prices. That is the point of a firm that keeps residential property, private client and corporate advice under one roof: the decision in one area does not quietly create a problem in another.

Bonsai Law drafts wills alongside residential purchases as joined-up work. If you're buying or have recently bought and don't yet have wills in place, that's the conversation to have next.