Information & Resources

Not sure what all the legal words mean? Let’s untangle them.

At Premier Wills Online, we think making a Will should be clear, calm, and hassle-free. Below is a simple guide to the most common terms you’ll come across when writing or reviewing a Will.

If you’re still unsure about anything, you can:

Start your Will online (the forms explain things as you go)
Check our FAQs

Probate

What it means:
Probate is the legal process of dealing with someone’s estate after they die, gathering their assets, paying any debts/tax, and passing what’s left to the right people.

Usually the court issues a document (often called a Grant of Probate or Grant of Representation) which gives the person in charge the authority to deal with banks, HMRC, and other organisations.

Beneficiary

A beneficiary is simply someone who receives something in a Will, money, property, an item, or even the whole estate.

Testator

The testator is the person making the Will.

(If it’s a woman, some older documents say “testatrix” — but “testator” is now used for everyone.)

Intestate / Intestate Estate

If someone dies without a valid Will, they are said to have died intestate.
Their estate is then shared out according to the intestacy rules of England and Wales, not according to what they may have wanted.

That’s one of the big reasons we recommend having a Will, even if your situation is straightforward.

Executor

An executor is the person (or people) named in your Will to sort everything out when you die.

Their job is to:

find out what you owned and what you owed
keep estate accounts
pay funeral costs and debts
and then distribute your estate exactly as your Will says

Executors have a legal duty to act properly, which is why it’s important to choose people you trust.

Administrator

If there is no valid Will, there’s no executor named. In that case, the court will appoint someone to do the job, this person is called an administrator.

So:

Executor = named in a Will
Administrator = appointed because there was no Will (or no available executor)

Specific Legacy (or Specific Gift)

This is a gift of a particular item to a particular person.

For example:

“I leave my diamond ring to my niece Anna.”
“I leave my classic car to my brother.”

That’s a specific legacy.

General Legacy / Pecuniary Legacy

This is a gift paid from the general estate, usually a set amount of money.

For example:

“I leave £5,000 to my friend James.”
“I leave £2,000 to Cancer Research UK.”

Those are general (pecuniary) legacies.

Trust

A trust is a legal arrangement where property or money is looked after by people (trustees) for someone else’s benefit.

Trusts are often used to:

protect money for children until they’re old enough
provide for a partner but make sure assets eventually go to children
help with tax or care-fee planning

(You can set up many common trusts directly in your Will.)

You can add trust provisions when you create your Will online with Premier Wills Online.

Trustee

A trustee is the person (or people) you appoint to manage assets in a trust.
They must act in the best interests of the person who is meant to benefit (the beneficiary).

Sometimes your executors can also act as trustees, it depends how your Will is written.

Mirror Wills

Mirror Wills are two Wills, usually for couples, that say almost the same thing.

Example:

Each leaves everything to the other first
And then, on the second death, to the same children/beneficiaries

They’re popular for married couples, civil partners, and long-term partners who want to protect each other and make sure the estate eventually passes to the right people.

(Partners can still have separate Wills if their wishes are different.)

Living Will / Advance Decision

A Living Will (also called an Advance Decision or Advance Directive) is not about money or property.

It’s a document where you set out your wishes for medical treatment in case, in the future, you can’t communicate or make decisions yourself.

For example, you can say whether you would or would not want certain life-sustaining treatments.

It sits alongside your Will, not instead of it.

Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA)

A Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) lets you legally appoint someone you trust to make decisions for you if you can’t do so yourself later on.

There are two main types:

Property and Financial Affairs LPA – for money, bills, bank accounts, property
Health and Welfare LPA – for care, medical treatment, and daily living decisions

If you don’t have an LPA and you lose capacity, your family may have to apply to the court, which is slower, more expensive, and you don’t get to choose who acts.

That’s why we often say: