Will

WILL – A Wandering Itinerary of Leftover Love

Stephanie Elaine Anderson (Nanny Steph) died on 27th Sept 2014 and left Gary to execute her will.

What follows is an Institute think-through of what a ‘will’ is.

First of all we want to unpack the hard evidence. There are two key documents: the WILL and the CONFIRMATION (or probate).

Here’s the WILL:

will

Here’s the CONFIRMATION (probate):

confirmation

We needed the will so we could be sure what Nanny Steph wanted and we needed the confirmation so that we had the legal right to execute the will.
To get these documents you can pay solicitors £2500+ or you can DIY for nothing, like we did.

Nanny Steph left her two sons:

  • The House currently on market for £130 000, but with outstanding mortgage of £56 000 + early repayment fees
  • Scottish Equitable Life Insurance worth £60 000
  • North East Scotland Pension Fund worth some £32 000
  • Winter fuel allowance £200
  • Bank overdraft £530DR

Gary is now in the process of settling financial affairs. He has opened a separate bank account for this matter and has received Life Insurance money into it. We are now wondering whether to repay the mortgage or wait till the sale of the house.

North East Scotland Pension Fund

On Friday 16 January 2015 we woke up to a sum of £16138.24 in our current bank account. This was Gary’s share of his Mum’s North East Scotland Pension Fund.
£1138 was immediately eaten up with overdraft and credit card debt, but we were left with £15 000 to play with.

On Saturday 17 January, we held a family meeting and each member of the family, except for James (who still can’t speak), gave some ideas on what they would do with the money. This is an image of our discussion from Lena’s ‘Book of Death’.

will budget1

Final decision on spending £15 000 was:

    • Family Tree Trip, from the West Coast of Ireland to the Southern tip of Croatia, chasing Gary and Lena’s grandparents’ places of birth and teaching the boys about their family history. The trip is expected to take place in the summer of 2015.
    • iPad Air 2. Our stolen iPad with Family Tree application that Gabriel filled in, has never been recovered. This is an opportunity to get a new iPad (an item which is totally unnecessary, a technological toy)  and  use it to further work on the Family Tree application as well as journey-log.
    • Camera. Again, restoring our stolen item and using it to document the journey and everyday life.
    • Fitness Equipment (running clothes, trainers, bikes, scooter…) Nanny Steph was a big fitness enthusiast so we thought she would have been made up to see us all spend the money on something healthy,
    • Blackpool Pleasure Beach trip. Back in 2005 Nanny Steph took Neal and Gabriel to Blackpool Pleasure Beach with their cousins, This was before Sid’s birth. Now he’s really eager to go…
    • COP21 FAN project, all family members took a vote and it was unanimous

Budget:

    • 10% will go to COP21 FAN (Family Activist Network) £1500
    • Fitness Equipment £1000
    • Blackpool Pleasure Beach £500
    • Camera £500
    • iPad Air 2 £500
    • Family Tree Trip £11000

The Future Institute WILL

This got us thinking about what we might leave behind. What do we have? What do we value most? Who do we want to give it to in the inevitable event of our deaths?

So we decided to write an open WILL, inspired by Nanny Steph, a public naming of what we value most and to who(m) those things will go. We’re not going to solicitors, we don’t need them. We’ve got this space to write our WILL.

This is the Last WILL and Testament of The Institute for the Art and Practice of Dissent at Home – a work in progress.