When persons are making a will and particularly with respect to those made in more rural environments rather than in towns or cities, at times persons making their will will have earmarked a particular site for a son or daughter. Oftentimes persons making their wills have land but not significant cash assets and want to try and give their children a “leg up” on the property ladder. One way they considering doing this is by leaving a site to a child in a will.
In other cases, a person may have a range of property or various parcels of land. These could be anything from two acres of farmland to twenty or more. Sometimes clients will know these parcels by particular historical names or by means of pet names or names of the original owners. When drafting wills, we lawyers like to keep matters as clear as possible.
So, sometimes, clients will say, “I give a site at the rear of the house”, or “I give “White’s field”” to so and so. While the person making the will will be aware of these plots and know where they are, a person reading the will might not.
So in these types of cases, we try and identify the properties as best we can. Normally we do this through preparing a map of the property using the Land Registry mapping system or through identifying properties with their Land Registry plan number or folio number. The map prepared then gets appended to the will as part of the will process.
So in short, it is normal and perfectly acceptable for someone to look to leave a site or a piece of property to a friend or relative. We have the expertise to re-shape this into the proper format and standard that would be normal in the will drafting context.
For more information or any help with will drafting please do not hesitate to contact us on info@kerrywills.ie. Colm Kelly