Writing a will is a milestone. The relief most people feel when the document is signed and witnessed is real - and it should be. But the will itself is only half the job. The other half is making sure the people you've appointed can actually do what you asked them to do, when the time comes.
This article is about that second half: the parts of "having a will" that have nothing to do with the will itself.
The job the will doesn't do
A will is a set of instructions. What it isn't is a set of resources, contact lists, document trails, or login pointers. A will says "leave the cottage to my niece"; it does not say "the deeds are with HSBC, the buildings insurance is with Aviva, the contents insurance lapsed in 2024, and the boiler service contract renews automatically every March".
That second list - the practical infrastructure of your life - is what your executor will actually need to settle the estate. None of it usually appears in the will. None of it usually appears anywhere consistent at all.
What "the other half" looks like in practice
A complete will-and-legacy plan covers all five of these. Most people stop after the first.
1. The will itself. Legally compliant, signed, witnessed, kept somewhere findable. The document on which everything else depends.
2. The executors, briefed. The people you've appointed know they're executors, know roughly what the role involves, and know how they'll get access when needed. The Executor Notification Service handles this automatically - your appointees get an email the moment you finalise the will.
3. The documents your family will need. Insurance policies, property deeds, identity papers, financial account references, funeral wishes. The contents of a complete Family Vault.
4. The updates. Life moves. Marriage, children, a new home, a falling-out, a moved-abroad sibling, a deceased executor - each is a reason to revisit. A will that's never been updated since 2014 is probably misaligned with the life you have in 2026.
5. The path for executors when the time comes. A clear, single place for executors to start: the will, the checklist, the documents, the asset register, all already laid out. Not a series of phone calls and drawer-searches.
The will does part 1. Trusted Hands is designed to handle the rest in one place.
Why "the other half" rarely gets done
Three reasons, in our experience:
- Relief. Once the will is signed, people consider the job done. They don't want to think about it again.
- Effort. Pulling together insurance policies, deeds, account references and funeral wishes is a project. People mean to and don't.
- Privacy. Some people are uneasy storing financial information centrally. Modern encryption (AES-256-GCM, UK-hosted) and strict access controls remove most of the basis for that concern.
What goes wrong when the second half is skipped
Executors describe the early weeks after a death in remarkably consistent terms:
- "We didn't know if there was life insurance."
- "We didn't know which pensions she had."
- "We found three different versions of the will and didn't know which was current."
- "We assumed his car was paid off. It wasn't."
- "We missed a subscription that drained four months of payments before we noticed."
Each of these is the kind of thing that goes in the Family Vault. None of them belongs in the will itself. But all of them matter for an executor doing the job properly.
The half-and-half rule
A useful sanity check: if the answers to all of these are "yes", you've done both halves of the job.
- Is your will current, signed and witnessed?
- Do your executors know they are executors?
- Do they know where to start when the time comes?
- Are the main documents and account references they'll need recorded somewhere they'll find?
- Is everything updated within the last three years?
If any of those is "no", the will is doing only part of the work you intended.
Frequently asked questions
Can't my executor just hire a solicitor to handle the estate?
They can - but a solicitor's first job is gathering the same information you could have given them yourself. The cost is paid by the estate; the time delay is paid by your family. Doing some of the legwork in advance is a kindness.
Isn't a letter of wishes enough?
A letter of wishes is great for personal notes and intentions that don't belong in the will. It is not a substitute for a structured record of insurance, accounts, deeds and funeral wishes - which is what a Family Vault provides.
What if my executor doesn't want the responsibility?
That's a good reason to give them as much pre-organised information as possible. An executor with a clear starting point is far more likely to feel willing and able than one who opens a drawer and finds chaos.
Get both halves done in one place.
Trusted Hands isn't just a will builder. It is a complete legacy system - the will, the Family Vault, the Executor Notification Service, and the update path for life's changes.
- Build your will online from £49
- Add the Family Vault with the annual subscription
- Executors notified automatically at the moment you appoint them
- One place. One clear set of instructions. For the people you trust most.