Frequently asked questions about legacies

To find details of solicitors specialising in Wills in your local area please call the Law Society on 020 7242 1222 or visit the Law Society website.

When choosing a solicitor, we suggest you ask how much they would charge for preparing or updating your Will or Codicil.

You can also ask how much they would charge for dealing with your estate if they were appointed as executor.   

ActionAid has partnered with the National Free Wills Network and Octopus Legacy to give you the opportunity to write your Will for free.  

Find out more on how to include ActionAid your Will.

Your solicitor will need our registered details, which are:

Our registered name: ActionAid UK

Our registered address: ActionAid UK, 2nd Floor, 1 Easton Street, London, WC1X 0DW

Our registered charity number: 274467 (England and Wales) or SC045476 (Scotland)

There are two types of gifts in Wills:

Residuary gift: The remainder of the estate once other gifts and payments have been made often in the form of a percentage. This type of gift is popular because it takes care of others first and remains proportional to the value of your estate by keeping pace with inflation.  

Pecuniary gift: A fixed sum of money. The value of the pecuniary gift could decrease over time, as the cost of living increases. For example, in fifteen years, £5,000 will buy a lot less than it does today.  

Specific gifts: A named item, for example a piece of jewellery or property.

Any gift you can give to ActionAid UK will make a difference.

A residuary gift is popular with many supporters because it remains proportional to the value of their estate by keeping pace with inflation. But any gift, large or small, will make a huge difference. 

Executors are the people who will carry out your wishes in accordance with your Will.

You can appoint anyone you like – perhaps a close friend or family member – but make sure you ask them first.

Some people prefer to appoint a professional executor, like a bank or solicitor, but we advise you to be aware of the amount they’ll charge for this service before you decide. 

Find out more on our page for executors.

If your loved one has left a gift in their Will to ActionAid and you are the executor of the estate, please contact our legacy team.   

If you do not wish to alter your existing Will other than to include a gift to ActionAid UK, you can amend your Will by preparing a document called a Codicil.

We recommend that you consult a solicitor to ensure that the Codicil is valid and your wishes will take effect. 

A gift to ActionAid UK in your Will is tax-exempt and this may save some of the tax your executors would otherwise have to pay from your estate.

However, as tax is a complex area of law, we recommend you take specialist independent advice.  Find out more about inheritance tax and other charity gifts.

Inheritance Tax is a tax on money or possessions you leave when you die. It’s also sometimes payable on trusts or gifts made during someone’s lifetime.

Inheritance Tax may be payable on an estate which exceeds the current threshold (£325,000), although no tax is payable on gifts to charities.  

Please check the UK Government's website for more information.

As tax is a complex area of law, we recommend you speak to an independent financial advisor or solicitor about the Inheritance Tax implications for your estate.  

A properly drafted Will can help reduce the amount of tax payable, and increase the amount of your assets to go to your loved ones and chosen charities. 

Find out more about inheritance tax and other charity gifts.

Thanks to the generosity of our supporters, we’re able to have a big impact on the lives of the women and girls we work with.

Our aim is to make sure your donations go as far as possible. Our charitable activities include grants to the ActionAid Federation, emergency and humanitarian work, campaigning and policy influencing in the UK and overseas, and education work in the UK.

Find out more on where your money goes.

We cannot facilitate an arrangement where a gift can be left to a sponsored child, as we do not keep track of the children involved in the sponsorship programme after they have grown older.

Once the gift in your Will is realised, the child you sponsor may be an adult and may have moved away from the community. 

Child sponsorship is primarily about building sustainable communities and while we recognise the bond between sponsor and child, it would be unethical for us as a charity to allow gifts in Wills to be given to individual children as it could create conflict amongst other children in the community and if the gift is quite large, it could create real problems for the child and others in the community.

However, a gift in your Will to ActionAid would allow us to continue working in communities like the one you support. 

If you have any further questions, please contact us directly by email or by phone on 01460 238000.

The communities who most need our support change over time, so it is helpful not to restrict gifts to specific projects.

We therefore ask that you consider specifying that your gift can be used for ActionAid’s general purposes.

However, please do get in touch if you’d like to discuss this further by contacting us by email or by phone on 01460 238000.