Law Society warns: credit crunch means wills need reviewing

Individuals leaving houses and shares to family in their wills have been recommended to review them, as falling house and share prices have reduced the value of many bequests and contributed to a 175% increase in High Court disputes over wills since 2006 - and there may be tax consequences too.

Other factors contributing to disputes following death can include the demands of different family arrangements (for example, co-habitation and more than one marriage), children born outside of a main relationship, failure to review long-standing wills and intestacy (where a person does not make a will), so that rules about who gets what - which may not be what the deceased intended - automatically apply.

Failure to review wills can also lead to increased inheritance tax, as the threshold at which the tax is payable goes up, assets values decrease, and inheritance tax exemptions and reliefs change, resulting in lost opportunities to save tax.

Wills should be reviewed at least every few years, and whenever major changes occur in your circumstances, such as new children, changes in relationships and deaths.