With the team at St Helens Law now working remotely, staying home and staying safe, read on for the first of our blogs to keep you up to date with the latest thoughts from SHL…
Working from home
Our staff are now working from home if they can, and they have been wonderful throughout the whole process. I just wish that there was more that we could do to help them.
We have been inundated with requests for wills and powers of attorney and our staff are working very hard to process them. We are currently processing basic wills, and offering invitations to come back to us once all of this madness has ended if more complicated documents are required.
Let’s look at what a Will has to have…
- It has to be in writing
- It has to be properly executed under the Wills Act 1937
- It has to be intended to be a Will, not just a note or a record of thoughts.
The “properly executed” requirement is the tricky part. It would not be suitable to share the guidelines in full here, but that is usually where homemade wills fall down. If you need a simple will however, we are able to do it for you securely without any need for face-to-face contact.
What is a Power of Attorney?
It is a document that authorises someone to deal for you if you are unable for some reason to deal for yourself. You can limit the extent of control that your attorney has over your affairs.
Final thoughts
Listening to LBC Radio at the moment – James O’Brien – really is top drawer, as he was during the Brexit discussions. All that seems a little unimportant now in light of what has happened. The discussions on LBC show the desperate state of the nation in relation to support for people who don’t or can’t work. Asking someone to live on £94 per week is just a joke. Surely everyone should receive a wage to allow them to live to a reasonable standard. If some good is to come out of this, it might be that it shows that capitalism on its own will not work. The State does need to intervene to guarantee standards where money doesn’t make the world go around.