Leaving a gift in your Will

Photo courtesy of Shane Mielke








Legacies
Why make a Will?
Making a Will is the only way to ensure that your money and assets will be shared in according to your wishes after your death, and to be certain that your estate is distributed precisely as you wish. It may also be an opportunity to leave a gift to a charity of your choice, such as Isabel Hospice, which might not be possible during your lifetime due to your personal circumstances. Any gifts made in your Will to a registered charity will be exempt from Inheritance Tax, and so in certain situations this may be a very effective way of reducing the tax liability of your estate whilst benefiting a favourite cause.


How a gift to Isabel Hospice can help

A gift to Isabel Hospice in your Will is a gift to your local community.
In recent years gifts in Wills to Isabel Hospice have not only enabled us to extend the services that we offer to patients, their carers and families, but they have also helped us to carry out work on our buildings, such as the extension to our In-Patient Unit in 2000 which provided an additional 6 beds.

Traditionally Isabel Hospice has provided specialist palliative care for patients suffering from cancer, with a limited amount of care also being provided for non-cancer patients. Over the next few years our aim is to respond to the unmet need for additional specialist palliative care for non-cancer patients, such as those suffering from chronic heart or kidney failure. This will enable us to support many more members of our local community, but will inevitably place greater demands on our resources. Not only will we need to recruit and train additional staff, we will also need to provide the infrastructure to support these services. By leaving a gift to Isabel Hospice in your Will, you could help us to move one step closer to providing care for everyone in eastern Hertfordshire who needs our support.




"Isabel Hospice gave us strength when we were at our lowest. The support we received helped us and all of our family and friends to deal with losing our beloved Paul." Michele Hart



There are various ways in which you can make a gift to Isabel Hospice in your Will, and these are outlined in the Legacy Booklet (please call Charity Warnes on 01707 382500 for a copy). You can also download the suggested wording for making a gift to Isabel Hospice in your Will to ensure that it is legally binding. We would recommend that your Will is drafted by a qualified professional. This is generally very easy and may avoid significant problems at a later stage.

Alternatively, if you already have a Will in place and wish to add a gift in favour of Isabel Hospice, this can be done by means of a Codicil, which is a document which simply adds a new instruction. You can download a Codicil form and instructions for completion below.

For further information on making a gift to Isabel Hospice in your Will you can download the following documents:

legacy leaflet (4).pdf
codicil_form.pdf
Wording for Gifts in Wills.doc

The Isabel Hospice Society

Many people who leave a gift to a charity in their Will do so because they have a personal interest in that organisation. For instance, in the case of Isabel Hospice, it may be that a loved one has been cared for by our staff and volunteers. With this in mind we have set up The Isabel Hospice Society for those people who have expressed an intention to leave a gift to the Hospice and wish to be kept up-to-date with developments within the charity. Membership is free for anyone informing us of their intention to leave a gift. Twice a year we will write to you with the latest news, and once a year the Chairman of Isabel Hospice will invite you to join him at a social event where you will have the opportunity to meet some of those people involved in the running of the Hospice.

If you have already included Isabel Hospice in your Will and wish to become a member of the Isabel Hospice Society, or should you wish to notify us of your intention to leave a gift, simply complete the Response Form which you can download in the legacy leaflet above, and return it to us.

At Isabel Hospice we understand that your Will is a very private and personal matter. Any information that you wish to share with us is entirely at your own discretion, and is not legally binding. All information is held securely, and Isabel Hospice does not share personal information with other companies or organisations.


Should you wish to speak in confidence about a possible gift to Isabel Hospice in your Will, please call Charity Warnes, Trusts and Legacies Manager, on 01707 382500 or e-mail Charity Warnes

Thank you for taking the time to consider remembering Isabel Hospice in your Will. Any gift that you leave, no matter what size, will make a very real difference to the lives of people living with life-limiting illnesses in eastern Hertfordshire and will also help to ensure that our services are here to support future generations.