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Gifts in Wills

After you have taken care of your loved ones, a small gift in your will could make an enormous difference to the cutting edge cancer research funded by Action Against Cancer. Your legacy will support the development of lifesaving cures for cancer.

Types of gifts

There are two main options available to you when leaving a gift in your will:

  • A residuary gift of an estate is everything that is left after all other payments have been made.
  • A pecuniary gift is a fixed sum of money left in a will.

Writing your will

We strongly suggest that you speak with your solicitor before creating or updating your will but please find guideline wording below:

Residuary gift

I give all (or %_________ share) of my Estate (out of which shall be paid my funeral and testamentary expenses and my debts) [and any property over which I have power of appointment] to Action Against Cancer (registered charity no. 1143743) of Regency Chambers, Jubilee Way, Bury, BL9 0JW to be applied for its general purposes.

Pecuniary gift

I give Action Against Cancer (registered charity no. 1143743) of Regency Chambers, Jubilee Way, Bury, BL9 0JW, the sum of £________ to be applied for its general purposes, and I direct that the receipt of a trustee or proper officer of Action Against Cancer shall be a complete discharge to my Executors.

Updating your will by codicil

If you are updating your existing will so as to include a gift to Action Against Cancer, you can do so by using a codicil. A codicil need not change the terms of your current will, it can simply add a new instruction.

We recommend that you bear the following in mind:

  • Crossing out or adding to your existing will not validly update it.
  • The codicil must be signed, dated and witnessed by two people.
  • These witnesses must be independent (i.e. not family members) and must be over 18 years old.
  • The codicil should be kept with (but not attached to) your willA copy of your will and any codicils should be sent to your executors and they should be informed where the original documents are kept.

Again, we strongly recommend that you speak with your solicitor before writing a codicil.

Inheritance tax

As we are a registered charity, a gift in your will to Action Against Cancer is free of inheritance tax.

A gift to Action Against Cancer in your will could even help to reduce the amount of inheritance tax payable on your estate. If your estate is worth more than £325,000, your beneficiaries may have to pay inheritance tax on what they receive. From April 2012, a gift of 10% or more of your estate to charity reduces the inheritance tax due from 40% to 36%.

Please speak with your solicitor to discuss how leaving a gift to Action Against Cancer will affect your inheritance tax liability.

Help us to prepare for the future

If you have been kind enough to leave a gift in your will to Action Against Cancer and would like to let us know, please contact Ms Charley Cranmer, Action Against Cancer's Director of Fundraising and Communications on 07535 806067 or 0161 280 4243 or by email on charley@aacancer.org.

Letting us know will help us to plan our support for future lifesaving projects and, with your permission, we will keep you updated with progress of the current projects that Action Against Cancer is supporting. We will, of course, keep anything you tell us strictly confidential.