A Will is the one legal document that everyone intends to make before they die, but many people never do. Unfortunately the old saying "leave a Will, or leave a mess" can be very true. Failure to make a Will can result in untold distress and heartache for loved ones and sometimes it can cause them significant financial loss.

The lawyers at Buller McLeod can advise you on what you can, and can't, do in your Will, and provide you with a thorough and valid Last Will and Testament that will spare your family and loved ones unnecessary pain and ensure their financial security after you aren't around anymore to help them.

Homemade Wills of the type where you buy a form from the local newsagent and "fill in the blanks" may be sufficient for the most simple and basic of situations but if you "do it yourself" and without the advice and knowledge of a legal professional there's no way of knowing whether you have covered all the bases and avoided leaving any loopholes in your Will and deceased estate. You may think you have created a good Will only for your family to discover when it is too late that it contained some fatal flaw or gap which produces unintended, and undesirable, consequences for them. A badly prepared or improperly executed Will can be rendered partly or wholly invalid and may not be capable of obtaining a Grant of Probate and a Will in which the deceased has not made adequate provision for those people that the law would consider he/she had a moral obligation to provide for may become the subject of a Testator's Family Maintenance Claim in the Supreme Court. In either case this can cost the Estate thousands of dollars in legal costs and cause untold heartache for the parties involved.

Nowadays, with real estate values at record highs, even a modest deceased estate can have a total value of hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of dollars. It seems to be a false, and risky, economy therefore to either not make a Will at all or to do it yourself using a "Will kit", just to avoid spending a bit more on having a lawyer prepare a complete and thorough legal Will.

The costs of a lawyer preparing a Will can vary greatly depending on how simple or complex a document you want it to be. At Buller McLeod Lawyers our costs of preparing a "standard" Will that contains what we find to be the most commonly needed provisions are probably not as high as you think - if you would like a fixed price estimate from us of what it would cost to prepare your Will just This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it setting out what you would like to say in your Will and we'll take a look at it and email you back with our no obligation costs estimate -we'll even give you a discount on a second Will for your spouse or partner if it is essentially a mirror of the provisions of your Will.

If you prefer not to have to attend our office to sign your Will we can even post or email your finished Will to you with detailed instructions on how to properly execute it. Done this way a single Will can cost as little as $165.00 including GST or two Husband/Wife "mirror" Wills from $264.00 including GST.