Getting your affairs in order: the complete UK checklist

Why it is worth a weekend

Almost half of UK adults have no will - and fewer still have their wider affairs in order. Without a simple record, grieving families spend months hunting for accounts, pensions and paperwork, paying bills they cannot identify, and guessing at wishes nobody wrote down.

None of that takes money to fix. It takes an organised weekend and somewhere sensible (and findable!) to keep the information. Work through the list below, ticking as you go - ticks save on this device.

Start with money

List every account you hold or owe. Skip the balances - they date within days. Record what exists, who provides it, and how to reach it: you are leaving a map, not a valuation.

• Every bank and savings account, with provider and account number
• Pensions, including old workplace ones you barely remember - MoneyHelper, the government's free guidance service, can help trace lost ones
• Investments, credit cards, loans and buy-now-pay-later accounts
• How to get into each one - app, website or branch - so nobody has to guess

Property and paperwork

The recurring paperwork of a household. If cancelling it, claiming on it, or finding it would matter to someone else, it goes on the list.

• Every property you own or rent, with mortgage or landlord details
• Where the deeds or tenancy agreement live
• Insurance policies: home, car, life and anything else
• Utility bills, council tax and car documents

Your digital life

Email first - it unlocks almost everything else. Our guide to what happens to your online accounts covers this in full; the short version:

• Each email address, who provides it, and how to get in
• Phones and laptops, with PINs or passcodes
• Social media, photo storage and anything holding memories
• Subscriptions and memberships that keep charging until cancelled
• Anything holding money: banking apps, savings, investments, crypto

Keep passwords secure. A password manager or a digital vault like Wiseplan is ideal - otherwise, written down somewhere hidden and safe at home, never anywhere obvious like a desk drawer or a note on the fridge.

Wills, LPAs and wishes

The legal backbone. Note what exists and where it lives - and be honest about what is missing.

• Your will: where the signed original is, and who the executor is - GOV.UK explains how to make one if you have not
• Lasting Powers of Attorney: who your attorneys are and where the documents are - read our Lasting Power of Attorney guide, or start at GOV.UK's power of attorney pages
• Funeral wishes, organ donation decisions and anything time-sensitive
• The practical stuff: pets, plants, the boiler manual, who has a spare key

Tell someone where it all is

A perfect record nobody can find is barely better than none. Choose one or two trusted people - a partner, a child, a close friend - and make sure they know the plan exists and how to reach it. If the conversation feels awkward, our guide to talking to your family about wills and wishes has ways in that help.

Keep it current, not just complete

Plans quietly go out of date: accounts open and close, policies renew, passwords change. Look yours over once a year, and any time life moves - a house move, a new arrival, a big gift. Do not aim for perfect. Aim for findable.

How Wiseplan helps

This whole checklist works on paper. But paper sits in a drawer, goes stale, and cannot tap you on the shoulder. Wiseplan was built to hold exactly what you have just gathered: curated forms that ask for what an executor would actually need rather than a pile of uploads, photo and document uploads where they save time, and gentle prompts when something has not been looked at in a while. You choose who sees what - partner today, executor when it matters - and you can change your mind at any time.