A nominee is not a Will. Here is the difference.

When you open an account or buy a policy, you are asked to name a nominee. Most people write a spouse or a parent and move on. Many assume that settles who gets the money after they are gone. Often it does not.

What a nominee is

A nominee is the person the institution will pay, or hand the account to, if you die. Think of the nominee as the person who receives the money first, so that things do not get stuck.

That is not the same as owning it. Depending on the product and the law that applies to your family, the nominee may be expected to pass the money on to the legal heirs, and the legal heirs may not be the same people as the nominee.

What a Will is

A Will is your written instruction about who should get what. It names a person to carry out those instructions, and it is what the law looks to when there is a dispute.

Without a Will, the law decides who inherits, based on rules that depend on your family and your religion. Those rules may not match what you would have chosen.

Where it goes wrong

A few common situations:

• The nominee is a spouse, and there are also children, parents or siblings with a claim.
• A nominee was named years ago and your life has changed since. A marriage, a child, a death in the family.
• A property or an account has no nominee at all.
• Two family members each believe they were promised the same thing.

None of these are rare, and most are painful mostly because the family has to sort it out at the worst possible time.

A sensible order

1. Make a list of everything you hold, and where.
2. Check that every account and policy has a nominee, and that it is still the right one.
3. Write a Will that says what you actually want.
4. Tell one trusted person where it is kept.

We are not lawyers, and we do not give legal advice. What we can do is help you gather the list, and introduce you to a Will service that is built for this. You can read about that on our Will service page.