Leaving a legacy
After providing for your family and loved ones, leaving a charitable gift in your Will offers an amazing opportunity to make a substantial difference to the work of Living Word International and its partners.
Anyone of sound mind aged 18 and over can make a Will. Dying without a Will can add additional stress to loved ones, but dying with a Will speaks volumes about how we have lived and what were our priorities. Normally is easy to draw up a Will, but should anyone permanently lose their mental capacity, it becomes much harder and necessitates the involvement of the courts.
How to write a Will
The completion of a Will is not difficult for most people. Following consideration of how you would like your estate to be distributed, a few legal formalities in preparing and executing (signing) a Will ensures that problems and potentially expensive challenges are avoided.
The best way to write a Will is by engaging a solicitor. They will be able to advise you in the process. If you do not have a solicitor you could ask family or friends for recommendations or you can use the Law Society’s database to find someone who can help you close to where you live.
Many people prefer to write their own Will to keep the cost down, but an alternative, unless your Will is likely to be complex, is an organisation called Free Wills which provides a legally checked Will with no charge.
The benefits of leaving a gift to charity in your Will
In situations where the estate is valued above the zero tax threshold (in May 2025 that threshold is £325,000 for a single person), the government offers some tax incentives for those who leave a proportion of their estate to charity.
We recommend that you seek professional advice for your own circumstances. More information can be found on the HMRC website.
How to leave a legacy to Living Word International
Ask your solicitor or will writer to add a gift to Living Word International in your Will. This could be a proportion, a fixed amount or the residue of your estate.
The following text is an appropriate form of wording:
“I give Living Word International of Lytchett House, 13 Freeland Park, Wareham Road, Poole, Dorset, BH16 6FA (registered office), a registered charity number 1165611 and company registered in England number 09523029 [insert amount of gift or proportion here].
Please also let us know exactly how you would like your legacy to be used. This can be done by writing an Expression of Wishes and sending that to us. Note that it is important that you do not refer to your Expression of Wishes in your Will, so that the gift to Living Word International is effective for Inheritance Tax purposes and so that you retain full flexibility to amend your Expression of Wishes whenever and however you want.
Further information
Further advice about making a Will can be obtained from: