Storing a Will

The original versions of legal documents, such as Wills and Powers of Attorney are the only legally binding versions. Scans, photocopies and computer records are not legally valid because they don’t have your original signature on them. The original Will is your only Will and must be kept safely.

One place you should never keep an original Will is at home. If you have a fire, flood or burglary, you risk losing your Will. If your Will is damaged in any way, then the courts could declare the Will invalid.

You must keep your Will in a safe place; however that place must be easily accessible when the document is needed!

There are various ways to store your Will. Your solicitor or Will writer may store it for you at their offices.

The National Will Safe Document Storage facility is a unique national, central, storage facility for Wills that overcomes all of the problems of safely caring for important legal documents.
www.nationalwillsafe.co.uk

Please complete the Enquiry Form below to store your Will with the National Will Safe.

Your Will and any other relevant legal documents, such as Powers of Attorney, are kept in a waterproof wallet in a specialist document archive facility.

While your documents are with National Will Safe they are fully insured against loss or damage. If anything happens to your documents, they will be recreated and replaced for you, free of charge.

If your document is lost or damaged at the time it is needed, or it’s loss or damage only comes to light at the time it is needed then we are insured for up to £2million to compensate anyone who loses out or incurs costs as a result of there being no legally binding document in existence.

National Will Safe provide you with plastic identity cards for you and your Executors. They display your name, a unique storage reference number and our contact details.

You can access your documents at any time – free of charge. The documents can either be returned to your professional advisor or directly to you, using an insured delivery service.

When your Executors need to access your Will, all they need to do is provide National Will Safe with a death certificate and proof of their identity and they will send your Will to them free of charge, using a secure, next day delivery service

When you store your Will with National Will Safe it is also registered with the National Will Register. This means that your Will is safe and secure, and can also be found when you have passed on if a Certainty Will Search is undertaken.

• is stored in a waterproof wallet
• is stored in a specialist document archive
• is fully insured
• is returned to you or your Will writer/solicitor – free of charge at any time
• is returned to your Executors when needed – free of charge
• can be registered to our storage address