What type of gifts can I leave in my Will?

Answer

There are several types of gifts you can leave in your Will for different people or organisations such as charities. The three types of gifts you can leave in your Will are a pecuniary gift, a specific gift, and residuary estate gifts. 

A pecuniary gift, also known as a cash gift, is a fixed amount of money you can choose to give to a specific person, a group of people or organisation. You can ask your solicitor to take inflation into account to preserve the gift’s value. 

A specific gift refers to a particular item that you want to leave to a person. For example, if you have a valuable piece of artwork, you might choose to pass it on to a member of your family as a specific gift in your Will. 

A residuary gift is what is left of your estate after tax, debt, and when other gifts have been given out. If you leave the residue of your estate to a beneficiary, then they will inherit the rest of your assets after everything else is considered. 

When creating your Will, if you choose to leave gifts, you can leave them to anybody. However, if you wish to give a gift to any child under the age of 18, you will have to put it into a trust.