Moving home comes with a long to-do list.There are contracts to sign, boxes to pack, utilities to move, insurance to arrange and addresses to update. By the time the keys are finally in your hand, adding anything else to that list probably isn’t particularly appealing.
But buying or selling a home is often about much more than changing address.
It can coincide with moving in with a partner, getting married, starting or growing a family, separating, downsizing or simply reaching a different stage of life. And because a property is likely to be one of your most significant assets, a move can be a useful point to take stock of some of the legal and financial arrangements sitting around it.
“We regularly find that the legal issues which cause families difficulties later aren’t caused by the property transaction itself, but by arrangements that haven’t kept pace with changing circumstances. Moving home provides a valuable opportunity to review estate planning, ownership structures and future decision-making arrangements to ensure they continue to work as intended.” — Rachel Hodges, Private Client and Residential Property Partner
Here are five things worth thinking about once the immediate move is under control.
1. Check whether your will still reflects your circumstances
You don’t necessarily need a new will every time you move house.
But if buying or selling a property has materially changed what you own, it makes sense to check whether an existing will still does what you intended it to do.
A will determines what happens to your money, property and possessions after your death. If you need to change an existing will, this needs to be done formally, either through a codicil or by making a new will.
A review is particularly worth considering if your will refers specifically to a property you no longer own, if you’ve bought a home with somebody else, or if the move has happened alongside another major change in your personal circumstances.
Don’t assume that the intentions you recorded several years ago automatically fit your life today.
Sometimes a review will confirm that nothing needs changing. That’s useful to know too.
2. Understand how you own your new home
If you’ve bought a property with somebody else, one of the important questions is how you own it together.
In England and Wales, joint owners can generally hold a property as either joint tenants or tenants in common. The distinction has important implications for what happens when one owner dies.
As joint tenants, both owners have equal rights to the whole property. If one dies, the property passes automatically to the surviving owner or owners and an individual cannot leave their ownership of the property to someone else through their will.
As tenants in common, the owners can hold different shares. An individual’s share does not automatically pass to the other owner or owners on death and can instead be left through a will.
Neither structure is automatically “better”. The right arrangement depends on your circumstances and what you’re trying to achieve.
But it is important to understand which applies to you, particularly if you’re an unmarried couple, have children from a previous relationship or have contributed different amounts towards the property.
Your property ownership and your estate planning should make sense together, rather than being considered as two completely separate things.
3. Think about what’s changed around the move
The house itself might not actually be the biggest reason to review your arrangements.
Often, it’s everything happening around it.
For example, you might be:
- Buying with a partner for the first time
- Getting married or entering a civil partnership
- Separating or divorcing
- Having or planning children
- Bringing two families together
- Taking on significantly different financial commitments
- Providing financial support to somebody else
- Downsizing later in life
Those changes can affect what you want to happen to your estate and who you want to provide for.
It’s particularly important not to assume that living together creates the same position as marriage or civil partnership. If someone dies without a valid will, their estate is distributed according to the statutory intestacy rules rather than according to what they might informally have intended.
That is one reason significant life changes should prompt a conversation about whether your existing arrangements still work.
4. Review your wider protection
A bigger home can mean a bigger mortgage. Moving in together can create shared financial responsibilities. Having children can increase the number of people depending on your income.
So alongside the property itself, it’s worth looking at the wider safeguards you already have in place.
That could include reviewing existing life insurance or other protection policies to make sure the level and type of cover remain appropriate for your circumstances.
It’s also worth checking the practical details around existing arrangements. Are the relevant providers holding your current information? Do any nominations or instructions associated with your financial arrangements still reflect your wishes?
The objective isn’t to buy another product simply because you’ve moved.
It’s to ask whether the arrangements you previously put in place were designed for the life you have now, rather than the one you had when you first made them.
5. Don’t forget about future decision-making
Estate planning isn’t only about what happens after somebody dies.
A major life change can also be a useful prompt to consider what would happen if illness or an accident meant you couldn’t make important decisions for yourself.
That may mean reviewing any existing Lasting Powers of Attorney and making sure the practical information around them remains current.
If you don’t have LPAs in place, moving home doesn’t automatically mean you need them. But it can be a sensible moment to consider whether you want trusted people to have legal authority to make certain decisions for you if you become unable to do so yourself.
If you’re already reviewing your will and wider financial arrangements, this can form part of the same conversation about whether your plans still reflect your circumstances.
And if you don’t have a will at all?
Moving house is as good a prompt as any to deal with something that is very easy to keep putting off.
Without a valid will, you don’t get to set out who should inherit your estate. Instead, the law determines who is entitled to inherit under the intestacy rules.
That may be particularly important where your circumstances don’t fit neatly into a traditional family structure.
A valid will allows you to set out what should happen to your money, property and possessions after your death.
And once it’s done, it shouldn’t simply disappear into a drawer forever. It should be revisited when your circumstances change significantly.
A new home is a good moment to take stock
People quite rightly focus their energy on getting the move over the line.
But once completion has happened and the immediate chaos begins to settle, there is value in stepping back.
Perhaps you’ve bought with someone for the first time. Perhaps the move gives your family more room. Perhaps you’re starting again somewhere new, or downsizing after decades in the same house.
Whatever brought about the move, it’s a natural opportunity to ask whether the legal and financial arrangements around your life have kept pace with it.
That doesn’t mean everything needs to change.
Sometimes reviewing your arrangements simply confirms that they still work exactly as you intended.
Your legal and financial arrangements don’t need attention just because you’ve changed postcode. They’re worth reviewing because sometimes life changes at the same time.
Need to review your arrangements?
If moving home has changed your circumstances, Carbon Law Partners can help you understand whether your existing will and estate planning arrangements are still right for you
