How to Leave a Gift in Your Will

Thank you for considering leaving a gift in your will to English Heritage.

Legacy gifts help care for the nation's heritage for years to come. They make possible inspirational projects, specialist conservation and innovative approaches to history at our remarkable collection of historic places.

Leaving a Gift in your Will

There are several ways you can leave a gift to English Heritage. When it comes to writing your will we recommend that you seek advice from your solicitor. To help with these discussions, please see our list of types of legacy gift below.

Gifts that are free from restrictions are particularly helpful as they are put towards English Heritage's most urgent projects. If you would like your gift to be used at your favourite property or in support of a particular area of English Heritage's work, you can specify this in your will. If this is something you are interested in doing, please get in touch.

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Types of Legacy Gift

Residuary Gift
The residue of your estate is the balance of your estate after tax, expenses and all other gifts in your will have been paid. You can leave the residue to one beneficiary, or share it between several. All the other bequests will be settled before the residuary gifts are made. If you decide a residuary gift is right for you, here’s an example of how your will could be worded:
‘I give a X % share of the residue of my estate to The English Heritage Trust (registered charity no. 1140351) of 100 Wood Street, London, EC2V 7AN for its general purposes.’

Pecuniary Gift
A pecuniary gift in your will is a specified amount of money. You can leave any chosen sum. However, when making a gift of this kind it is worth taking inflation into consideration – either by reviewing your will every few years, or index-linking your cash gifts (essentially, linking your gifts to the rate of inflation). Your solicitor will be able to advise how to do this. Here’s an example of wording for a pecuniary gift:
‘I give the sum of [amount in figures and words] to The English Heritage Trust (registered charity no. 1140351) of 100 Wood Street, London, EC2V 7AN for its general purposes.’

Reversionary Gift
A reversionary gift allows you to leave assets to someone for the course of their lifetime, which will then pass (or revert) to The English Heritage Trust. This can be a good way to care for both your loved ones and our nation’s heritage, but please bear in mind this is a more complicated gift to arrange and we suggest speaking with your solicitor to ensure this is set out correctly.

Gifts of Objects and Properties
If you would like to leave a specific object, an entire collection or a property to English Heritage, we would be incredibly grateful if you could let us know so that together we can agree the best means of looking after your gift. While we are very appreciative of gifts of any kind, we cannot promise to find a home for every object but we may be able to suggest a solution to ensure that your wishes will be carried out.

If you already have a Will

If you already have a will you may not need to write a new one to include a gift to English Heritage. You can make amendments without having to re-write an existing will by adding a Codicil. You can download this Codicil form to see our suggested Codicil wording. We always advise that you speak to a solicitor when writing or re-writing your will.

Letting Us Know

We understand that the contents of your will are a private matter. However, should you wish to let us know of your intention to leave a gift to English Heritage, we would like to thank you for your support. To show our appreciation, we invite those who have pledged a gift in their will to special events at one of our properties each year. If you would like to take part in these events and keep in touch, please print, complete and return this Letting Us Know form to let us know of your intention to leave us a gift in your will, or contact our Legacy Manager.

Gifts of Objects and Properties

If you would like to leave an object, a collection or a property to English Heritage, we would be incredibly grateful if you could let us know so that together we can agree the best means of looking after your gift. While we are very appreciative of gifts of any kind, we cannot promise to find a home for every object but we may be able to suggest a solution to ensure that your wishes will be carried out.

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Guidance For Executors

If you are administering a will that includes a gift to English Heritage, please get in touch and we will be happy to help in any way we can.