How to make a will in the UK: steps, costs and choosing the right route

Seven steps, two witnesses, one afternoon

Making a will is one of those tasks that people put off for years and then finish in an afternoon. The legal core is small: a written document, signed by you in front of two independent adult witnesses, who sign it in front of you. Everything else, from listing your assets to choosing executors, is preparation. Around half of UK adults still have no will, which means the intestacy rules, not their own wishes, decide who inherits. This guide covers the whole process for England and Wales (Scotland has different rules, noted below), compares the DIY, online and solicitor routes with real prices, and is general information rather than legal advice; your own circumstances may need professional input.

If you want a structured starting point, our making a will checklist walks you through the decisions in order and shows which route fits your situation.

Who can make a will

In England and Wales, anyone aged 18 or over can make a will, provided they are of sound mind and acting voluntarily, as set out in GOV.UK's guidance on making your will legal. "Sound mind" means understanding what a will is, roughly what you own, and who might reasonably expect to inherit. Capacity is only ever seriously examined when a will is challenged, usually where the person had dementia or made the will very late in life; our guide to mental capacity, dementia and will validity covers how that works. In Scotland the minimum age is 12 and the witnessing rules differ, so Scottish readers should treat the validity section below as England and Wales only.

The seven steps

1. List what you own and roughly what it is worth. Property, savings, pensions, life insurance, investments, business interests, vehicles, and anything sentimental you want to leave to a specific person. Note that jointly owned property held as joint tenants and most pension death benefits pass outside your will.
2. Decide who gets what. Specific gifts first (items or fixed sums), then the residue (everything left over). Always name backup beneficiaries in case someone dies before you.
3. Choose your executors. These are the people who will administer your estate. Up to four can act, they can be beneficiaries, and it is wise to name at least two or a substitute.
4. Name guardians if you have children under 18. A will is the standard way to say who should raise your children if both parents die. Our guide to guardianship clauses covers how to draft them, and a separate letter of wishes can give guardians practical guidance the will itself should not contain.
5. Draft the document. Template, online service or solicitor; the comparison below helps you choose.
6. Sign it in front of two witnesses. This is the step DIY wills most often get wrong, so the validity rules get their own section next.
7. Store it safely and tell your executors where it is. A perfectly drafted will that nobody can find is worth nothing.

What makes the will legally valid

The requirements come from the Wills Act 1837 and are summarised on GOV.UK's making a will pages. The will must be in writing. You must sign it in the presence of two witnesses who are both over 18, and they must then sign the same document in your presence, with everyone having a clear view of the signing. If you cannot sign yourself, someone can sign on your behalf, in your presence and at your direction.

The rule that catches families out: a witness, or a witness's spouse or civil partner, cannot inherit anything under the will. The will itself stays valid, but the gift to that person fails. Asking your daughter and her husband to witness a will that leaves everything to your daughter is a quiet way to disinherit her. Use neighbours, colleagues or friends who take nothing under the will. The full detail, including what happens with signatures on the wrong page and other technical slips, is in our companion guide to signing and witnessing rules. Note that the temporary pandemic-era rule allowing video witnessing has expired; witnesses must be physically present.

Three routes: DIY, online service, solicitor

Route	Typical cost	Typical time	Best suited to
DIY template (stationers or download)	£10 to £30	An hour or two	Very simple estates, confident writers, stopgap wills
Online will-writing service	£50 to £150	15 to 60 minutes, often with legal review within days	Straightforward estates wanting guided drafting and light checking
Solicitor	£300 to £1,000+	1 to 3 weeks	Anything non-standard: trusts, businesses, blended families, exclusions, overseas assets

The prices are typical market ranges rather than fixed figures; couples making mirror wills usually pay less than double the single price, and some charities run free will schemes for over-55s in the hope of a legacy gift. Free and low-cost options have real trade-offs around updates and storage, which we unpack in making a will online or for free. Couples should also understand the difference between mirror wills and the far more restrictive mutual wills before signing matching documents; see mirror wills vs mutual wills.

When DIY is fine, and when it is a false economy

Price comparisons only tell you what each route costs, not what it protects. A more honest test is complexity. DIY or an online service is a reasonable choice when all of the following are true: you are single or in a first marriage, everything goes to your spouse and then your children outright, all your assets are in the UK, you own no business, and nobody who depends on you financially is being left out.

Break any one of those conditions and the calculus changes, because the cost of an error lands on your family after you are gone, when nothing can be corrected:

• Blended families. Leaving everything to a new spouse can accidentally disinherit children from a first relationship, because nothing obliges the survivor to pass anything on. Consider Raj and Elena: each has children from earlier marriages, and matching DIY wills leaving everything to each other would let the survivor rewrite the destination of both families' inheritance. Structures such as life-interest arrangements need professional drafting; see our guides to blended families and unmarried partners and property protection trusts in a will.
• Business or agricultural interests. Shares in a company or a farm raise succession and relief questions a template cannot handle, especially with the reliefs regime changing from April 2026. Our business owners hub covers the estate issues for this group.
• Overseas property or non-UK domicile. Foreign assets can be governed by foreign succession law, and a UK-only will may not cover them or may conflict with a will made abroad.
• Excluding someone who might expect to inherit. A financially dependent adult child or a cohabiting partner left out of a will can claim against the estate. Excluding someone safely takes careful drafting and a documented explanation.
• Larger estates. Once an estate approaches the inheritance tax thresholds, will structure interacts with allowances such as the residence nil-rate band. Our inheritance tax pillar guide explains the framework.

The pattern is consistent: DIY handles the document, a solicitor handles the situation. Paying £600 to avoid a failed gift or a family dispute over a £400,000 estate is not an extravagance.

Storing and updating your will

Once signed, the original matters; a copy is not automatically enough for probate. You can keep it at home in a fireproof place, leave it with the solicitor who drafted it, use a bank, or deposit it with HM Courts and Tribunals Service for a one-off fee of £24. Wherever it lives, your executors need to know. Registering its location with the National Will Register is a further safeguard, covered in storing a will and the National Will Register.

A will is not a one-off document. GOV.UK recommends reviewing it every 5 years and after any major life change. Two rules deserve particular attention: marriage or civil partnership automatically cancels any earlier will, and divorce does not cancel a will but treats the former spouse as having died before you, which can unravel your intended plan. Small amendments can be made by codicil, signed and witnessed like the original; bigger changes deserve a new will that revokes all earlier ones. The revocation rules are set out fully in updating a will after marriage or divorce.

What happens if you never get round to it

Die without a valid will and the intestacy rules distribute your estate in a fixed legal order. A spouse or civil partner takes the largest share, children next, and unmarried partners, stepchildren and friends take nothing at all. GOV.UK's intestacy tool shows the outcome for any specific family shape, and our guide to who inherits if there is no will walks through the order in detail. For almost everyone, the default is worse than even a basic will.

Start with our making a will checklist to map your assets and decisions, then pick the route that matches your complexity. If your situation has any of the warning signs above, or you simply want the drafting checked, we can put you in touch with an estate planning specialist who prepares wills for families like yours; getting the structure right now is far cheaper than untangling it after a death. For everything else on this topic, our wills pillar guide collects the full reading list.