Leave A Gift in your Will
Our annual income does not allow us to do everything we’d like to do and we are very grateful for all legacies which have helped us to carry out our work, to fund projects and to provide information.
These are some of the projects that gifts left in Wills have helped us to achieve:
• Bridge projects
• Signposting
• Maintaining the Catalogue of Rights of Way
• Publishing guides to the law of access
• Providing maps of access routes
• Asserting Rights of Way and generally access rights
If you wish to make a Will or amend an existing one, we recommend that you speak to a solicitor. Solicitors are regulated so you have more protection than if you use a Will writing pack or do it yourself.
It’s worth noting that if you leave something in your Will to a registered charity, such as ScotWays, then it will be free from Inheritance Tax. You can cut the Inheritance Tax rate on the rest of your estate from 40% to 36% if you leave at least 10% of your chargeable estate to charity (law as at November 2021).
Information about making a Will
What type of gift can you make in a Will?
1. Residuary gifts – a share, or sometimes all, of a person’s assets (their “estate” after all the payments due have been made).
2. Pecuniary gifts – a specific sum of money.
3. Specific gifts – a particular item, such as property, antiques, jewellery or shares.
It’s important that the gift is described precisely in your Will so that the executors can understand exactly what you intend.
Leaving estate to charity
Leaving a percentage share of your estate to charity means that it doesn’t lose value over time compared to the rest of your assets.
Leaving a Will
Leaving a Will means that you can take care of your loved ones and the causes that you care about. If you die without leaving a Will your assets are shared according to certain inflexible rules, which can lead to unexpected and possibly unwelcome results.
How to make a Will
1. Decide who you want to leave your assets to and who you would like to carry out your wishes set out in your Will – your Executors. If you have children under the age of 16 (Scotland) consider how to provide for them.
2. Prepare your Will: In order to be legally binding it has to state clearly and unambiguously what you want to happen. Also, it has to be signed in the way that the law requires. You may wish to take professional advice to have your Will drawn up; the cost of that advice depends on whom you ask to do it and the complexity of your wishes.
3. Update your Will – you should review it every five years and particularly if there are major changes in your life.
Making a codicil to your Will
If you have a Will already, you may change it by making a Codicil. This is a useful way of making small changes or additions but for major changes you should make a new Will. Codicils have to be signed in the same way as a Will.
