Gift in Wills
Gifts in Wills play a vital part in providing much needed support to our beneficiaries in their time of need. After taking care of your family and loved ones, please give some consideration to remembering us in your Will. You can help those who have served and those who will serve, for all our tomorrows and long into the future.
Making a Will is neither difficult nor time consuming, but making it is very important if you want to ensure that your wishes regarding your estate are carried out exactly as you want them to be when you are no longer around. A Will can help you protect the interests of your loved ones, as well as furthering the causes about which you feel most deeply.
Why Choose a Gift in Your Will?
Leaving a gift in your Will to RNBT is a powerful way to continue your support beyond your lifetime. Whether you choose to leave a specific amount, a percentage of your estate, or a particular charity, your gift will help sustain our mission to provide essential services to beneficiaries, ensuring they receive the care and assistance they deserve.
Why Choose RNBT?
Choosing to remember the Royal Naval Benevolent Trust (RNBT) in your Will is a profound way to honour your commitment to those who have served our country. Your generous donation ensures that we can continue our mission to providing essential support to Royal Navy and Royal Marines veterans and their families in their time of need. Your gift will empower future generations, fund vital programs, and uphold a legacy of care and gratitude for those who have dedicated their lives to serving our nation.
Meet our Beneficiaries
Free Will Writing Service
RNBT is a member of the National Free Wills Network. Through our free will writing service, supporters can access the opportunity to have a simple Will written or amended for free at a local solicitor. There is no obligation to remember the RNBT in your Will but we hope you may consider doing so.
Request your free Will
To receive your free Will, firstly please provide your contact details using the form below.
With your permission, we’ll forward your details to the National Free Wills Network, who will then write to you with details of local, participating solicitors. You make an appointment with one of those solicitors to draw up or amend your Will. The RNBT pays for your Will to be written, at the special rate agreed upon with the solicitor.
Need to know
A couple of important points about the scheme:
- Using the free Will writing scheme doesn’t mean you have to include a gift in your Will to The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust
- Any complex financial arrangements such as trust or tax planning, may incur an additional charge
You can download the Free Will Writing Service leaflet here. If you have any questions please feel free to email freewills@rnbt.org.uk or call Susan Aistrope on 02392 690112.
Gifts in Wills FAQ’s
Gifts in Wills usually take the form of a ‘residuary’, ‘pecuniary’ or ‘specific’ legacy. These are defined as:
Residuary – The whole or a percentage of an estate after all other gifts have been made and any debts settled.
Pecuniary – A fixed sum of money left in your Will.
Specific – Items such as a house or stocks and shares.
Vital. We simply could not assist the number of people we do without Gifts left in Wills.
The minimum amount of information your solicitor will need is:
Our charity registration number: 206243
Our address: The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust, Castaway House, 311 Twyford Avenue, Portsmouth PO2 8RN
It will also be worth having an idea of what type of gift you want to leave.
Here is some example wording you could use to leave a gift in your Will to The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust. You may wish to print this off and present it to your solicitor, if so, please specify your particular wishes by deleting as appropriate.
‘I give XX percent of the remainder of my estate/ £ (cash amount) /my property of (give address) to The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust, Castaway House, 311 Twyford Avenue, Portsmouth PO2 8RN (Charity Registration Number 206243) for its charitable purposes. I further direct that the receipt of the Finance Director or other proper officers of The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust shall be a full and proper discharge for the said legacy.’
Not necessarily. If you already have a Will and want to make small changes, it is possible to do so by adding a codicil, or supplement to your Will. Your solicitor can help you with this. You could use our Free Will writing service to make an amendment.
Yes, definitely. The RNBT has been helping sailors, marines and their families for almost 100 years and we plan to be around for at least the next 100 years to provide assistance to those who need us. Thanks to gifts in Wills we can ensure that we are here to protect future generations.
Gifts to charities, such as The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust, are exempt from inheritance tax, so charitable gifts will be deducted from your estate before any inheritance tax liability is calculated. As a result, many people can make a gift to a charity they care about without it significantly affecting the value of what they leave to their family and loved ones.
If you leave 10% or more of your estate to charity, your estate will also benefit from a reduced rate of inheritance tax at 36%. This means that, if you were intending to leave between around 6% and 9.99% of your estate to charity, your family and loved ones will actually be better off if you top up the gift to charity to 10% of your estate.
For more information on inheritance tax visit the Inheritance Tax section of the HMRC website.
There are other issues which could affect your inheritance tax liability, so we would recommend that you seek advice from a solicitor, accountant or financial adviser about your particular circumstances.
Please contact Susan Aistrope on 02392 690112, email susanaistrope@rnbt.org.uk, or write to us at The Royal Naval Benevolent Trust, Castaway House, 311 Twyford Avenue, Portsmouth PO2 8RN. We will be delighted to answer any queries you may have.