A letter of wishes is a private, informal note kept alongside your will that explains your preferences and your reasoning to the people who will carry it out. It is not legally binding: your executors, trustees and guardians can read it, weigh it and, if they judge it right, depart from it. That is not a flaw. The will does the binding; the letter does the explaining. Everything here is general information rather than legal or financial advice, and it covers England and Wales.

The distinction matters because the two documents live under completely different rules. Under GOV.UK's guidance on making a valid will, a will must be in writing, made voluntarily by someone 18 or over of sound mind, and signed in the presence of 2 witnesses who are both over 18, who then sign in your presence. Miss a formality and the will can fail. A letter of wishes needs none of that. You can write it on a Tuesday evening, sign and date it, and replace it the following month without a witness in sight.

What a letter of wishes is actually for

A well drafted will is deliberately spare: it names executors, distributes the estate and creates any trusts, and it stops there. The letter of wishes carries everything the will should not be cluttered with:

  • Guidance for executors. Where documents and passwords are kept, which personal possessions should go to which family member, funeral preferences, who should be told of your death.
  • Guidance for trustees. How you would like trust money used, which beneficiaries you expect to need most support, ages or milestones at which you hope capital is released.
  • Guidance for guardians. If your will appoints guardians for children, the letter can describe your hopes for their schooling, religion, contact with wider family and general upbringing.
  • Your reasoning. If you have left unequal shares, or left someone out, a letter can record why. It cannot stop a challenge, but it gives a court and your family your side of the story. Where capacity might later be questioned, that record sits usefully alongside the evidence discussed in our guide to mental capacity and will validity.

Because it is private, the letter also avoids one side effect of the will itself: a will becomes a public document once probate is granted, while a letter of wishes stays between you and the people administering the estate.

Why it earns its place with discretionary trusts

The letter of wishes does its most serious work where a will creates a discretionary trust. As GOV.UK explains, in a discretionary trust the trustees decide what gets paid out (income or capital), which beneficiary receives it, how often payments are made and what conditions to attach. The trust deed gives them the power; it rarely tells them how you wanted the power used. The letter of wishes fills that gap: support my son's rent but not his business ventures, treat my stepchildren identically to my children, keep capital intact until each grandchild turns 25.

Trustees are not bound by any of it, which is precisely what preserves the flexibility (and the tax treatment) of the trust. But a thoughtful letter is normally the first document trustees reach for, and HMRC's Trust Registration Service manual acknowledges the document's role, noting that potential beneficiaries may include people referred to in a settlor's letter of wishes. If your will includes a trust over the family home, our explainer on property protection trusts in a will shows the kind of arrangement a letter typically sits behind.

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What it cannot do

Three limits are worth stating plainly. First, a letter of wishes cannot give anything away: a gift only takes effect if it is in the properly executed will. Second, it cannot override the will; where the two conflict, the will prevails. Third, it cannot be used to change the will informally. GOV.UK is clear that any change to a will must go through the same signing and witnessing process, so a letter that tries to "update" a gift changes nothing. If your circumstances have genuinely moved on, revise the will itself; our full guide to making a will covers when a new will beats an alteration.

Keeping it useful

Sign and date the letter, store it with your will but not stapled or clipped to it (marks on a will can raise questions about missing pages), and tell your executors it exists. Review it after big life events, and check it never drifts into contradicting the will. Writing one is a natural moment to check the will itself is in order too: our making a will checklist walks through what a complete set of documents looks like.

If your estate involves a trust, a blended family or anyone you are deliberately leaving out, it is worth having an estate planning specialist read the will and the letter together, so the binding document and the guiding one pull in the same direction. We can put you in touch with one who handles exactly this pairing.