How Much Does It Cost to Make a Will?

The cost of a Will in the UK varies a lot de­pend­ing on where the Last Will is writ­ten.

However, the good news is that there are now nu­mer­ous cost-ef­fect­ive al­tern­at­ives that exist, which do not re­quire going down the tra­di­tion­al and po­ten­tially ex­pens­ive route of hiring a lawyer.

We will find out how much it costs to write a Will in the UK.

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The Cost of a Will in the UK

Ul­ti­mately, the cost of a Will can vary de­pend­ing on sev­er­al factors, in­clud­ing the com­plex­ity of your fin­an­cial situ­ation, the nature of your assets, and whet­h­er you want or need pro­fes­sion­al as­sist­ance.

When it comes to think­ing about how much a Will is in the UK, here are some gen­er­al guidelines to con­sider.

The in­form­a­tion in the table was col­lec­ted on March 4, 2024.

💡 The Price of Making a Will has in­creased by 14% between 2015 to 2020 (Legal Ser­vice Board, 2020) and since that more cost-ef­fi­cient al­tern­at­ives have emerged.

The Cost of Making a Will with a So­li­citor

Hiring a So­li­citor for Will draft­ing is a common choice when someone has a large estate or a com­plex fin­an­cial situ­ation. This is be­cause law­yers have the ex­pert­ise to write a leg­ally bind­ing Will and to guide you through the entire pro­cess quite easily.

However, the most common reason for the av­er­age person fail­ing to have a Will in the UK is the sheer cost in­volved in hiring a So­li­citor to draft a Will.

The cost of making a will with a so­li­citor can vary. Ul­ti­mately, each law firm will set their own fees, with the fees for basic Will draft­ing ser­vices gen­er­ally ran­ging from up­wards of £150 to £300 or pos­sibly more per hour.

What ex­actly is making a will cost? Draft­ing a basic Will usu­ally takes a So­li­citor sev­er­al hours to com­plete, so you can easily spend more than £1,000 on even the most simple Will!

For more com­plex Wills or ad­di­tion­al ser­vices, such as tax plan­ning, the fees can be much higher. Often the bill can end up being thou­sands of pounds. So, it's im­port­ant to get a clear quote from the So­li­citor before pro­ceed­ing with this option.

When it comes to how much is a Will in the UK, hiring a So­li­citor is un­doubtedly the most ex­pens­ive option.

💡 Ac­cording to the study of Legal Ser­vices Board, only a little over half of legal firms dis­play their prices on their web­site.

Can I Write My Own Will without a So­li­citor?

Yes, you can write your own Will without the need for a so­li­citor. With Aatos, you can create a leg­ally bind­ing will in just 10 minutes from the com­fort of your home.

De­veloped by expert so­li­cit­ors, Aatos provides a seam­less and easy-to-use plat­form that guides you through the pro­cess. Once com­pleted, your Will is ready to down­load in­stantly. This ser­vice en­sures that you can handle your estate plan­ning ef­fi­ciently without the hassle of meet­ing a so­li­citor in person.

Try Aatos today and secure your wishes ef­fort­lessly!

How Much is a Will with a Tem­plate or DIY Will-Writ­ing Kit?

Firstly, let us briefly ex­plain what a Will Tem­plate or DIY Will-writ­ing Kit is in case you are un­fa­mili­ar. Es­sen­tially, Will Writ­ing Kits usu­ally con­tain a tem­plate Will for you to com­plete yourself rather than having to hire a lawyer to draft one for you.

When it comes to Will Writ­ing Kits, they usu­ally do not con­tain any sup­port or guid­ance but tend to be a tem­plate that you need to edit yourself and fill in all your de­tails. This is easier said than done if you are not leg­ally trained!

💡 Ac­cording to recent fig­ures, around 40,000 fam­ilies a year have a pro­longed pro­bate (Guardi­an 2015) pro­cess due to in­ef­fect­ive DIY Wills. Up to 10% of the value of your estate can end up being spent on ad­di­tion­al fees due to cre­at­ing an in­valid Will.

How Much Making a Will Costs with a Will Writ­ing Kit?

These DIY Will Writ­ing Kits can be found in many UK sta­tion­ery shops (such as WHS­mith) and can also be down­loaded from vari­ous web­sites, with av­er­age prices starting at £19.99 per Will.

The cheapest kind of DIY Will Writ­ing Kits that you will find in the UK are Post Office Will Kits, which are avail­able from some local post of­fices. The price of a Post Office Will Kit starts at around £9.99, de­pend­ing on where you are based. Do note that the most up to date price can of course be found at the Post Office itself, with prices vary­ing across the UK.

The prob­lem with these Will-writ­ing Kits, in­clud­ing DIY and Post Office Will Kits, is that there are rules that Wills need to follow in order to be leg­ally valid in the UK. Al­though Will-writ­ing Kits can go some way to­wards provid­ing a basic frame­work to help you create your Will, they are often poorly drafted and are not always ef­fect­ive.

Since there is no op­por­tun­ity to ask for sup­port when it comes to DIY and Post Office Will Kits, these tem­plates should be used with ex­treme cau­tion and only in very straight­for­ward situ­ations.

Also, bear in mind that the abil­ity to per­son­al­ise your wishes is lim­ited when you use DIY Will-writ­ing Kits.

When think­ing about how much is a Will, al­though DIY Will Writ­ing Kits (spe­cific­ally Post Office Will Kits) are the cheapest option… as the saying goes, you get what you pay for!

💡 Stor­ing your Will prop­erly is cru­cial to ensure your wishes are honored. It should be kept in a loc­a­tion where your heirs can easily find it. Read more: Find­ing a Will in the UK.

Will Writ­ing Ser­vices: Price of Making a Will Varies

Will writ­ing ser­vices can vary sig­ni­fic­antly in their of­fer­ings. While some may only fa­cil­it­ate the cre­ation of a simple will by in­put­ting in­form­a­tion into pre­defined boxes, they might lack cus­tom­er ser­vice or charge extra for it.

Ad­di­tion­ally, these ser­vices may not offer di­git­al stor­age for the fi­nal­ised doc­u­ment and often do not provide per­son­al­ised doc­u­ments tail­ored to in­di­vidual needs and cir­cum­stances.

The cost of many will writ­ing ser­vices typ­ic­ally ranges between £19.99 and £100.

It's im­port­ant to be aware that when con­sid­er­ing will writ­ing ser­vices, you should care­fully check what is in­cluded in the price. This in­cludes factors such as legal as­sist­ance, cus­tom­er ser­vice avail­ab­il­ity, doc­u­ment stor­age op­tions, and the type of will being of­fered.

💡 The use of online legal ser­vices has in­creased in the recent years. Es­pe­cially, young­er people (aged under 45 years old) prefer to write their Last Will online.

Read more: Online Wills – Dif­fer­ences between Online Tem­plates and Online Ser­vices

Cost of a Will at Aatos One of the Cheapest

If you are look­ing for more guid­ance without having to hire your own per­son­al So­li­citor then you can use Aatos! We make leg­ally valid Wills easy and af­ford­able.

The cost of making a Will in Aatos is very af­ford­able. For £99, you'll get a tail­ored Last Will and all the im­port­ant legal doc­u­ments. The price in­cludes home de­liv­ery, un­lim­ited re­vi­sions as well as on-going legal sup­port.

Aatos Cus­tom­er Review

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When there are no com­plex­it­ies re­garding heirs, making a Will can be quite straight­for­ward. I strongly re­com­mend that every­one ar­ranges their Will and Lasting Power of At­torney, as you never know what the future holds. Tech­nic­ally, the ser­vice func­tioned well, al­low­ing doc­u­ments to be down­loaded after they were cre­ated. Ad­di­tion­ally, the option to pur­chase ser­vices with a one-off pay­ment or as part of an annual pack­age is a bonus.

– Kay

Our team of expert law­yers have drawn up UK Wills that you can per­son­al­ise to meet your needs. All you need to do is answer straight­for­ward ques­tions on our legal plat­form and we create a per­son­al­ised Will for you that fully re­flects your wishes.

⚠️ Don’t forget to review and update your Will every year to ac­count for changes in cir­cum­stances, such as new assets, mar­riages, di­vor­ces, or the birth of chil­dren. This can easily be done with Aatos – we take care of the pa­per­work for you, all you need to do is update your de­tails!

With Aatos, your Last Will is always up-to-date and stored in My Aatos ac­count.

Try for free!

Read more

• What is a Dis­cre­tion­ary Will Trust?
• Con­test­ing a Will in the UK
• What is a Living Will?
• The Es­sen­tial Guide to Making a Will
• Will Stor­age