Letters of wishes
The personal document that sits alongside a will — funeral preferences, who should have which possessions, guidance for guardians and trustees, and the things a legal document has no room for.
Last updated
What it costs
- Letter of Wishes
- £35 with a will / £85 standalone
Quoted in writing before you commit to anything, and the price includes the signing visit to your home anywhere in Kent and East Sussex — no travel charge, and no extra for an evening or a weekend.
Right for you if: you want your executors and your family to understand not just what you decided, but why — and to be able to find it quickly.
A will is a legal instrument. It is precise, it is enforceable, and once probate is granted it is a public document that anybody can order a copy of. That makes it excellent at saying who inherits what, and poor at almost everything else a person actually wants to leave behind.
A letter of wishes is the other half. It sits alongside the will, it stays private, and it carries everything that needs explaining rather than enforcing.
What it’s for
Funeral preferences. Burial or cremation, a service or none, music, readings, where the ashes go. Wishes buried in a will are frequently not read until weeks after the funeral has already happened — which is a small tragedy, and a completely avoidable one.
Personal possessions. The specific items that carry meaning out of all proportion to their value: a ring, a watch, a set of tools, a painting. Listing two dozen of these in a will makes it unwieldy and means changing your mind requires a formal amendment. Listing them in a letter means you can revise it whenever you like.
Guidance for guardians. If you’ve appointed someone to raise your children, the will gives them the authority and nothing else. The letter is where you say what you’d have wanted about schooling, faith, keeping contact with both sides of the family, and how any money set aside should be used. Every guardian I have ever spoken to has wanted this and very few have had it.
Guidance for trustees. Where money is held in trust for a young or vulnerable beneficiary, trustees have discretion and are usually grateful for a steer. When would you release money early — a deposit, a course, a business? When would you not?
Explanations. If you’ve done something that might puzzle or wound somebody — left one child more than another because of help already given, left a relative out for reasons the family may not know — a contemporaneous note in your own words does more good than any amount of argument afterwards.
The limitation, and it’s the whole design
A letter of wishes is not binding. Your executors, trustees and guardians should read it and will nearly always follow it, but they are not compelled to.
That’s deliberate. Binding instructions belong in the will, where they can be enforced. Judgement calls belong in the letter, where the people you trusted are free to apply sense to circumstances you couldn’t foresee.
What it means in practice is that the two documents have to be written with each other in mind. If something matters enough that you need it to happen, it goes in the will. I’ll tell you plainly which side of that line each of your wishes falls, rather than letting you write a letter that quietly does nothing.
Writing one
Most people find this the easiest part of the process and quite a few find it the most useful. There’s no formality to observe: no witnesses, no prescribed wording. What I bring is the structure — the prompts for the things people forget, and a clear separation between what the letter can carry and what has to go in the will itself.
It’s usually prepared alongside a will, which is when everything is already fresh. It can also be written on its own, and updated whenever you like without touching the will at all.
Common questions
Is a letter of wishes legally binding?
No, and that is the point of it rather than a flaw in it. It guides your executors, trustees and guardians without binding them, which is exactly what you want for matters that need judgement rather than instruction. The trade-off is real: anything you genuinely need to happen must be in the will itself, where it is enforceable. I'll tell you which of your wishes belongs in which document.
Why not just put all this in the will?
Three reasons. A will becomes a public document once probate is granted, so anything in it can be read by anyone who cares to look — a letter of wishes stays private. A will usually isn't read until after the funeral, which is too late for funeral wishes to be any use. And a will can only be changed by a formal, witnessed process, whereas you can rewrite a letter of wishes on a wet Tuesday whenever your feelings change.
What should actually go in one?
Funeral and burial preferences. Who should have particular possessions — the ring, the clock, the tools — where you don't want to clutter the will with a list. Guidance for guardians on schooling, faith, and contact with both sides of the family. Guidance for trustees on when and why they might release money to a young beneficiary. Explanations, where a decision might otherwise puzzle or hurt someone. And messages, if you want to leave them.
Where should I keep it?
With the will, and tell your executors it exists — a letter nobody finds until after the funeral has achieved nothing. If it contains funeral wishes, it's worth a second copy somewhere the family will reach within a day or two rather than a week.
Not sure whether this is what you need?
That's what the first phone call is for. It's free, there's no obligation, and if something else would serve you better I'll tell you so.