Yes, you can get a will written for free, and it can still be professionally drafted
Making a will for free in the UK is genuinely possible, and not only by writing one yourself at the kitchen table. Several established schemes pay a qualified solicitor to draft a simple will for you: Will Aid every November, Free Wills Month in March and October for the over 55s, year-round charity will services, and free will benefits offered by some trade unions. Online will platforms cover the middle ground for a modest fee. The trade-off is never validity (a free will, correctly signed and witnessed, is exactly as binding as an expensive one). The trade-off is suitability: free routes are built for simple estates, and the cost of using one when your situation is not simple only appears after your death. This page is general information about your options rather than legal or financial advice, and it covers England and Wales; Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own rules, as gov.uk's making a will guidance notes.
Before choosing a route, it helps to know what your will actually needs to cover. Our making a will checklist walks through the questions in a few minutes and flags whether your estate looks simple enough for a free or online will.
The free routes, one by one
| Route | When | Who it is for | What it costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| Will Aid | November each year | Any adult, subject to appointment availability | Voluntary donation, suggested £120 single will, £200 mirror pair |
| Free Wills Month | March and October | Aged 55 or over (one of a couple qualifying is enough) | Free; a legacy gift is invited, not required |
| Charity free will services | Year round | Varies by charity, often no age limit | Free; no obligation to leave a gift in most schemes |
| Trade union schemes | Year round | Members (sometimes family too) | Included in membership |
Will Aid is a long-running partnership between participating solicitors and a group of UK charities. During November, the solicitor writes a basic will and waives their usual fee; in return you are invited to make a voluntary donation, with Will Aid suggesting £120 for a single basic will or £200 for a pair of mirror wills at the time of writing. Appointments open in advance and popular firms book up quickly.
Free Wills Month runs twice a year, in March and October. A group of charities funds participating solicitors to write or update simple wills for people aged 55 and over (where a couple wants mirror wills, only one of you needs to meet the age threshold). You are encouraged, never obliged, to leave a gift to one of the sponsoring charities.
Individual charity schemes operate all year. Many large charities fund free will services, online or in person, and most are explicit that there is no obligation to include them in your will, although legacies are of course why the schemes exist. Trade unions frequently include a free will service through their legal partners as a membership benefit, sometimes extending it to family members; if you are in a union, check before paying anyone.
Online will services: cheap, quick, and only half the job
Online will platforms take you through a questionnaire and generate a will, usually for a small fee, with some offering checking by a professional for extra cost. For a single person or couple with UK assets, straightforward wishes and no complicating factors, they can work well. Two cautions apply. First, the platform only produces a document; the legal work of executing it falls to you. Second, a questionnaire cannot probe the things a good adviser would, such as a previous marriage, a loan to one child, or a home owned as joint tenants.
Whichever route you use, the validity rules in gov.uk's guidance on making sure your will is legal are the same: you must be 18 or over and of sound mind, make the will voluntarily and in writing, sign it, and have two witnesses over 18 who watch you sign and then sign in your presence. Crucially, a witness or their married partner cannot inherit anything under the will; a gift to them fails even though the will itself stands. Our guide to signing and witnessing rules covers the detail, and once signed, the original needs safe storage, which our page on storing a will explains.
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When free or DIY stops being a bargain
The schemes above all describe themselves as covering simple wills, and that word is doing real work. A free or DIY will is the wrong tool when:
- Your family is blended. Second marriages, stepchildren (who do not inherit automatically) and children from earlier relationships need deliberate drafting to avoid accidentally disinheriting someone.
- You are cohabiting. An unmarried partner inherits nothing under the intestacy rules, so a mistake that invalidates a DIY will can leave them with no entitlement at all.
- Your estate may face inheritance tax. The nil-rate band is £325,000, frozen until 5 April 2031, and estate planning around it belongs in professionally drafted documents. Our wills pillar guide explains where wills and tax planning meet.
- You own a business, farmland or overseas property, or want to set up a trust, exclude a close relative, or provide for a vulnerable beneficiary.
- Capacity might later be questioned. A solicitor's file note about your understanding at the time is powerful evidence if the will is ever challenged.
For a full walkthrough of the whole process, from deciding what goes in a will to choosing executors, see our complete guide to how to make a will in the UK, and for a realistic picture of paid options our page on what a will costs sets out typical fees.
Choosing your route
A sensible test: if you can describe who gets what in two or three plain sentences, and none of the situations above applies, a free scheme or reputable online service will usually serve you well. If you hesitated at any point in that sentence, the fee for professional drafting is small against what a defective will can cost your family. Run your situation through the making a will checklist first; if it surfaces anything complicated, we can put you in touch with an estate planning specialist who drafts around exactly these issues, so the will you sign this year is still the right one when it is finally read.