Consider FRAME in Your Will

Legacies represent a vital source of income for FRAME so please consider remembering FRAME and its work in your Will

Please do not hesitate to contact us if you need any further information about how to do this.

Making sure your wishes are honoured

If you have not made a Will, the law will decide what happens to your Estate. This may not coincide with your wishes and the taxman could claim a large share of your estate.

Why Making a Will is Important

A Will provides an opportunity for you to leave your worldly wealth to the people and causes you care about.

Without a Will, the law will decide what happens to your Estate (everything you own) when you die. In order to ensure that your wishes are fully understood, it is advisable to consult a solicitor when making a Will.

How to make your Will In England and Wales

You can made a Will any time after your eighteenth birthday. A simple Will can be prepared quickly and inexpensively. Most solicitors charge between £250 and £400.

If you do not already have a solicitor, ask friends and relations to see whether they can recommend a firm whose services they have found satisfactory.

Citizens Advice Bureaux usually hold information about local solicitors and a full list can be found in Yellow Pages. If you decide to make a Will, you will need to appoint Executors who will be the persons responsible for ensuring the instructions contained in your Will are carried out. Although you can appoint up to four Executors, it is preferable to choose two people, such as a solicitor and a younger adult member of your family, or close friend in whom you have trust.

An alternative is to appoint a bank as your Executor but, like solicitors, they will charge a fee for administering your Estate.

Can I change my Will?

You can change your Will whenever you like but if this is done through a solicitor there is generally a fee. You may wish to add or remove a person or charity, or alter what they will receive. In simple cases, you can just add a Codicil, which is quick and easy to do.

Why FRAME Needs Your Help

Every year around 100 million experiments are performed on living animals throughout the world and more than 2.5 million of these are carried out in UK laboratories.These experiments cannot, unfortunately be stopped overnight, since otherwise new health-protecting drugs — and valuable consumer products — could not be safely introduced.

However, the number of experiments on animals can be reduced, and in some cases eliminated, by the development of alternative means of testing chemicals that do not involve the use of animals. FRAME’s objective is to develop such alternative tests and so help eliminate animal suffering.

To do this we need your financial help, so that we can continue with our research programme aimed at reducing, and eventually doing away with, animal experiments.

Types of Bequest

Pecuniary bequest

A gift of a specific amount of money.

Residuary bequest

The residue of your Estate is the amount remaining after pecuniary and specific provisions have been met and the costs of administering your Estate paid. Either the whole, or a share of this residue, can be left to charity.

Conditional bequest

A conditional bequest allows you to leave a gift to charity upon certain conditions. You may, for example, leave a bequest to any named person with the proviso that should they die first then their share should be given instead to a named charity.

Reversionary bequest

This is where the income from all or part of your Estate is paid to someone for life on condition that when they die, the Estate passes to someone else (i.e. the reversionary beneficiary). That “someone else” can also be a charity should you choose.

A special bequest

Many people preserve the memory of their own names, or the name of a loved one, by means of a gift or bequest.

What if you can't decide?

FRAME will be happy to discuss individual requirements with donors or their representatives. If you have already made a Will, you can add charitable bequests by using a Codicil which is simply legal jargon for an amendment to your Will.

Your solicitor will be happy to advise on what is best and there is some information available from the UK tax office.

Remember, all legacies and lifetime gifts benefiting charity are totally exempt from Inheritance Tax.