There is no legislation determining how quickly you should receive your will for execution (signing, dating and witnessing) after you have given your instructions. However, the Law Society do provide ‘good practice’ guidelines.

When you give instructions to your will writer, they should agree a date for the preparation of the will that is acceptable to you and, importantly, reflects any need for urgency. This might be, for example, because of serious illness or your travel plans.

Unless otherwise agreed, once you have provided all the information needed to complete the agreed instructions, you are reasonably entitled to expect:

• the draft will within seven working days.
• the final version of the will for execution within seven working days of you approving the draft version.
• if a draft is not supplied, the will for execution within ten working days.

Clearly, there can be adverse consequences of not having a will in place when you die; your estate might not be distributed (under the intestacy rules, referred to when there is no will) as you would have wanted. Be clear, therefore, with your will writer that these timescales will be complied with.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me at enquiries@osmondswills.co.uk.