This weekend I finally found the time to watch the BBC’s recent film of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde and I was pleasantly surprised to learn that the hero of the story is… a wills and probate solicitor!

Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is a horror story about a scientist, Dr Jekyll, who drinks a potion to turn himself into an evil murderer whom he calls Mr Hyde. The person who figures out this wrongdoing is Dr Jekyll’s solicitor, who starts by questioning why Dr Jekyll has left his entire estate to a ‘Mr Hyde’ in his will.

Putting the science fiction to one side, the story has some important lessons for those thinking about preparing their own will.

Sometimes, like Dr Jekyll, people make their will assuming that, because it’s their will and because it’s their property they are talking about, nobody will ever question what they are saying should happen to it. As people commonly say, ‘I can leave it all to the cat’s home if I want to’.

While it is correct that it is your property to leave to whom you want, it is important to bear in mind that, like Dr Jekyll’s solicitor, people might start questioning your will, particularly after you have died. When clients come to us making perhaps unusual distributions in their will, for example selecting an apparently random friend or acquaintance to leave things to, we will ask them how they know this person and how they have decided to leave part of their estate to them.

This is for a few reasons. Firstly, it protects the client themselves from being tricked into leaving part of their estate to someone who may not have their best interests at heart. Secondly, it helps to protect the will from future challenges. 

While we cannot guarantee that nobody will challenge the will later, we can at least record in our notes that we have spoken to the client about what their reasoning was, and we can explain in our notes why you have decided to leave your estate as you have done, which may be helpful evidence in the event that somebody later challenges your will. 

Thirdly, there might be a better way to achieve what you want to achieve or a better way to benefit the person that you want to leave something to rather than simply leaving them a chunk of your estate.

Ultimately, we end up having quite detailed conversations with our clients to try to understand the reasoning behind their wills. Sometimes clients find this frustrating or to be too much ‘bureaucracy’ but ultimately it is to protect the client, their will and what they want to achieve.

For further information about preparing a will, please contact our estate planning and wills team.