When Should You Update Your Will? Life Events That Make a Review Essential

Most people who make a Will do so at a significant moment: buying a first home, starting a family, or after losing a parent and seeing first hand how much easier a clear Will makes things. Having taken that step, it is tempting to file the Will away and consider the job done. Years pass, circumstances change, and the Will quietly becomes a record of a life that no longer exists.

An out-of-date Will can cause as much difficulty as no Will at all. It may leave gifts to people who have died, name an executor who can no longer act, or fail to provide for children and grandchildren who arrived after it was signed. In the worst cases, it can direct your estate to someone you parted from long ago, or trigger a partial intestacy that the rules, rather than you, then resolve.

The good news is that keeping a Will current is straightforward. A review takes very little time, and many changes can be made quickly and inexpensively. What matters is knowing when a review is needed. The sections below walk through the life events that should always prompt one, with particular attention to the points where Scots law differs from what many people assume. If you have not yet made a Will at all, our guide to making a Will in Scotland is the place to start.

When people worry about succession, they usually worry about dying without a Will at all. Dying intestate certainly causes problems: as we explain in our article on what happens if you die without a Will in Scotland, the law applies a fixed set of rules that can leave an unmarried partner or stepchildren with nothing. What is less widely understood is that a Will which no longer reflects your circumstances can produce outcomes that are just as unintended.

Consider a Will that leaves a sum to a friend who has since died, names a sole executor who has emigrated, or divides an estate between children without accounting for a child born later. Each of these creates a gap that the law must fill, and the way it fills that gap may bear little resemblance to what you would have chosen. A gift to a beneficiary who has died may simply fail and fall into the residue of the estate. An estate with no working executor may require an application to the court to have one appointed, adding delay and cost at a difficult time.

The point is simple. A Will is only as good as the circumstances it was written for. Once those circumstances change, the document needs to catch up. Reviewing your Will regularly, and after major life events, is the only way to make sure it still does the job you intended. Our Wills and estate planning team can carry out that review and advise whether a simple update or a fresh Will is the better route.

That sounds reassuring, but it creates a trap. If you made a Will before you married, perhaps leaving everything to a parent, a sibling or a former partner, that Will still stands after the wedding. Your new spouse is not automatically written in. They are protected only by Legal Rights, a distinctive feature of Scots law that entitles a surviving spouse or civil partner to a fixed share of your moveable estate, broadly everything except land and buildings. Legal Rights are valuable, but they are not the same as inheriting under a Will that names your spouse and reflects what you actually want for them.

The practical message is clear. Marriage or civil partnership should always trigger a review. If you want your new spouse to inherit your home, to act as your executor, or to receive more than their Legal Rights entitlement, your Will must say so. Reviewing it after marriage takes very little time and removes any doubt.

Divorce is one of the few life events that does carry an automatic effect on a Scottish Will, and it is important to understand exactly what that effect is, and what it is not.

Under the Succession (Scotland) Act 2016, where your marriage or civil partnership ends by divorce, dissolution or annulment, any provision in your Will in favour of your former spouse or civil partner is read as if they had died before you. The same applies to their appointment as your executor or trustee. So an ex-spouse who was left the bulk of your estate, and named to administer it, drops out of the picture by operation of law, unless your Will expressly states that the provision should survive the divorce. This applies where you are domiciled in Scotland and die on or after 1 November 2016.

Helpful as this default is, it is not a substitute for updating your Will, for several reasons. First, the rule treats your former spouse as predeceasing you, which can have knock-on effects: if they were your sole beneficiary and you named no alternative, their share may fall into the residue of your estate or, in some cases, into partial intestacy. Second, the rule does not apply to the appointment of a former spouse as guardian to your children, so an ex-partner you named as guardian remains appointed unless you change the Will. Third, divorce also affects property held with a survivorship destination in favour of a former spouse, which the same Act renders ineffective, and the interaction between your title deeds and your Will is exactly the kind of thing that benefits from a proper review.

Separation is different again, and this is where real risk can hide. If you have separated but are not yet divorced, none of the automatic consequences above apply. In the eyes of the law you are still married, which means an estranged spouse named in your Will remains a beneficiary and an executor, and retains their Legal Rights to a share of your moveable estate, until the divorce is final. For anyone who has separated and does not want their estranged spouse to inherit, updating the Will without delay is essential. We look at the wider financial picture in our article on what happens to the family home in a Scottish divorce.

A new arrival in the family is one of the most common reasons to revisit a Will, and one of the most important. A Will made before you had children, or when you had only one, will not automatically provide for those who come later. If your Will names your children individually rather than as a group, a child born afterwards may be left out entirely. If it predates parenthood altogether, it may make no provision for your children at all.

Beyond who inherits, a Will is the place to appoint a guardian for children under sixteen: the person who would care for them if both parents died. This is one of the most valuable things a Will can do for a young family, and it is a decision that can only be made in advance. As your children grow, marry or have children of their own, the people you would choose, and the way you would wish to provide for them, may change.

Grandchildren raise similar questions. Many people wish to leave something to grandchildren, whether directly or through a trust, and a Will written before they were born will not reflect that wish. It is also worth knowing that children in Scotland have Legal Rights to a share of your moveable estate, which cannot be removed by a Will, a point we cover in our article on dying without a Will. A well-drafted Will can take those rights into account and structure your estate so that it supports the next generation in the way you intend.

A Will distributes the estate you have when you die, not the estate you had when you signed it. As your circumstances change, the document can drift out of step with reality.

Buying or selling property is a common trigger. If your Will leaves a specific house to a particular person and you later sell it, that gift simply fails, a principle known as ademption, and the intended beneficiary receives nothing in its place unless the Will provides otherwise. Receiving an inheritance, building up savings, acquiring a business interest or buying property abroad can all change the shape of your estate significantly, and may call for a different distribution or additional planning.

Larger estates also bring inheritance tax into view. As your wealth grows, there may be value in structuring your Will to make use of the available allowances and reliefs, and to plan efficiently for the next generation. This is an area where tailored advice pays for itself. If your financial position has changed materially since you made your Will, whether up or down, a review will confirm that it still divides your estate the way you want and takes account of any tax considerations.

Wills are often written to last for decades, and over that time the people named in them may die before you do. When that happens, an unrevised Will can run into difficulty.

If the executor you appointed has died and you named no substitute, your family may have to apply to the Sheriff Court to have an executor-dative appointed before your estate can be administered, adding time and expense at an already painful moment. Naming one or more backup executors avoids this, but only if the Will is kept current as circumstances change.

The death of a beneficiary raises a separate issue. If someone left a gift in your Will dies before you, that gift may lapse and fall into the residue of your estate, passing to whoever inherits the remainder rather than to the person or cause you had in mind. There are exceptions, particularly for gifts to your own children or other descendants, where their own children may inherit in their place, but you should not rely on the default rules to achieve what a clear, updated Will can state explicitly. Whenever someone named in your Will dies, it is sensible to review the document and confirm it still works as you intended.

There is no legal requirement to review your Will at set intervals, and a validly executed Scottish Will does not expire. Even so, the sensible approach is to review your Will every three to five years, even if nothing obvious has changed, and always after any of the life events described above.

A periodic review is an opportunity to check that the people you have named are still the people you would choose, that your executors are still able and willing to act, that your wishes for your children and wider family are up to date, and that the law has not moved in a way that affects your plans. Scots succession law does change, as the reforms introduced by the Succession (Scotland) Act 2016 and the more recent Trusts and Succession (Scotland) Act 2024 show, and a review keeps your Will aligned with the current rules.

If a review shows that only a small change is needed, that is usually quick to arrange. If more has changed, making a fresh Will is often the cleaner solution. Either way, the discipline of reviewing your Will regularly is what keeps it doing its job. It is also a natural moment to check that your Power of Attorney arrangements are in place and current, since the two documents work together to protect you and your family.

Pomphreys has been advising families across Wishaw, North Lanarkshire and the surrounding area for generations, and reviewing and updating Wills is part of our everyday work. Our private client team will look at your existing Will, talk through what has changed in your life, and tell you plainly whether a simple update or a new Will is the better route.

We take the time to understand your family and your wishes, and we explain your options in clear language, without jargon. Whether your circumstances are straightforward or involve more complex matters such as a blended family, business interests or property abroad, we will make sure your Will reflects your intentions accurately and takes proper account of the distinctive features of Scots law, including Legal Rights and the effect of divorce.

If you would like to review your Powers of Attorney at the same time, something we would always recommend, we can deal with both together in a single appointment.

You should not amend a Will yourself. Crossing out words, writing in changes or adding notes to an existing Will can create confusion, cast doubt on your intentions, and in some cases invalidate the Will or the change. Minor amendments are usually made by a formal document called a codicil, which must be executed with the same formalities as a Will, while more significant changes are better dealt with by making a fresh Will. A solicitor will advise which approach suits your situation and make sure the change is valid and properly signed and witnessed, so that it cannot easily be challenged later.

Yes. A Will that was validly made and properly signed and witnessed does not expire and remains legally valid however old it is, until you revoke or replace it. The risk with an old Will is not that it stops working, but that it works exactly as written even though your life has moved on, leaving gifts to people who have died, naming executors who can no longer act, or failing to provide for family members who arrived later. That is why reviewing your Will periodically, and after major life events, matters so much, even when the document itself remains technically valid.

Sarah Lynch is the Managing Partner at Pomphreys. Sarah studied at Dundee University, achieving a 2:1 LLB Honours degree in Scots Law. She then moved back to Glasgow to study the Diploma in Legal Practice, being one of only a small number of students to be offered a funded position for academic excellence achieved during the LLB. Sarah then secured a traineeship concentrating on Personal Injury before deciding to broaden her scope of work to all civil litigation. We recently caught up with Sarah to discuss her role in Pomphreys.

Tel: 01698 373 365

Email: sl@pomphreyslaw.com

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