WPlain Wills
England and Wales

Prepare to write or update your will

Work through the people, property, accounts and decisions worth organising before you choose a will-writing route. No names or financial details are collected.

Private checklist · nothing is sent or saved

Your will-preparation organiser

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1. People and responsibilities

Decide who needs to be named and who should step in if your first choice cannot act.

2. Build an estate map

Make an inventory for planning. Do not include passwords, account numbers or security answers here.

3. Decide what the will needs to cover

Turn your intentions into a briefing that a regulated adviser or will-writing route can use.

4. Completion, storage and review

A preparation checklist is not the legal execution process. Follow current official guidance when the will is completed.

Reasons to consider specialist advice

GOV.UK recommends professional advice when a will is not straightforward. Tick anything that may apply.

No complexity flags selected. If you are unsure about any answer, professional advice can still be worthwhile.

Important: this organiser is general information for England and Wales. It does not create, review or store a will, and a printout is not a will and must not be signed as one. Scotland and Northern Ireland have different rules.

What this checklist does—and does not do

It creates a preparation list, not legal wording. GOV.UK says a will should identify who benefits, guardians for children under 18, executors and what happens if a beneficiary dies first. A legally valid will must also meet formal signing and witnessing rules.

Read the official GOV.UK will-writing guidance and legal signing requirements. If your circumstances are complex, use the will-support decision aid.

Before anybody signs, run both proposed adults through the will witness checker. It separates the witness conflict checks from the signing sequence and stores nothing.

Keep sensitive details out of the printout

The checklist deliberately asks only whether a task is complete. Keep full account numbers, passwords and security answers in an appropriately protected record. Tell your executor where important information and the signed original will can be found.