Richard Walford: Four will considerations for financial advisers

Scottish artist Sir David Wilkie's famous painting ‘The Reading of a Will' depicts a sprawling family - some of them grieving - gathered around the lawyer who is reading out the deceased's will. Although almost 200 years old, this image is still relevant today - not because we still see the physical gathering of hopeful relatives, but because ‘the family' is often a larger, looser and more flexible entity than ever before. Advisers need to be alive to the pitfalls of their clients failing to make proper provision. The English inheritance system starts from the principle of a binary ch...