This week
Map what the dissolution touched
The Records Roadmap produces a personalised plan covering the will, nominations, property and access — the things a separation quietly changes.
Open the Records Roadmap → All continuity events
Event review · someone must act
Separation or divorce
Dissolution does not only change a relationship. It can leave a will technically operative but substantively hollowed out — and pension and insurance nominations pointing at the wrong person.
§I
What changes
Under s.18A of the Wills Act 1837, a former spouse or civil partner is generally treated as having died on the date of dissolution for gifts and executor appointments — so a will's central gift or executor can fall away while the will stays in force.
Records to locate
- The current will — and a clear read of who it now actually benefits
- Pension death-benefit nominations and life-insurance nominations
- Property ownership records (joint tenants vs tenants in common)
- Joint accounts, mandates and shared digital access to revoke or re-paper
Authority to prove
- Executor appointments that may now have fallen away under s.18A
- Any LPA naming a former spouse as attorney
Formal requirements
- Wills Act 1837 s.18A (as amended by the Law Reform (Succession) Act 1995): a former spouse is generally treated as predeceased for the will's gifts and appointments
- Pension death benefits often sit outside the estate under scheme discretion — a nomination guides, but does not always bind, the trustees
Immediate actions
- Re-read the will for the gift and executor provisions affected
- Refresh pension and life-insurance nominations
- Revoke shared access and review property ownership structure
§II
What to do, in order
One thing to do this week, one tool to use now, one conversation to have. Each routes into a free Valoren tool — no card, no sign-up to start.
The tool
Family Knowledge Quiz
Shows which areas your records now misrepresent post-separation, and produces a Family Meeting Agenda to close them.
Take the quiz →The conversation
With your solicitor or adviser
A will and nominations review is the substantive task here. If you don't have an adviser, Valoren can route you to a Bureau Partner.
Bureau Partner intro →Rather have it done for you?
Signum can re-index the will, nominations and access (and draft an updated will — unreserved work) so nothing still points at a former partner.