How to write a letter of instruction your family can actually use

A will says who gets the house. It does not say that the boiler service is due in March, that the man who fixes it is called Dave and his number is in the kitchen drawer, that the cat has thyroid medication, or that the password to the family photographs is written inside the cover of a particular book.

The document that says those things is called a letter of instruction, or sometimes a letter of wishes. It has no legal force. It is not filed anywhere. It is simply the sheet of paper that turns a legal document into something a person can actually act on, and by every account from people who have had to sort out an estate, it is worth more in the first fortnight than the will is.

Almost nobody writes one. Here is how to, in about an hour.

What it is, and what it is not

A letter of instruction is practical, private, current and informal. It sits beside the will rather than inside it.

That distinction matters for a specific reason: in most jurisdictions a will that goes through probate becomes a public document. Anyone can request a copy. So a will is the last place on earth to put a password, a PIN, or the location of anything valuable. A letter of instruction is private, which is exactly why it can hold the things the will cannot.

It also has no legal authority whatsoever. It cannot leave anyone anything, it cannot appoint a guardian, and it cannot override the will. If a sentence in your letter contradicts your will, the will wins. Keep the two consistent, and get the legal document done properly by someone qualified.

What to put in it

Work through these seven sections. You will not need all of them. You will almost certainly think of something under each one that nobody else knows.

1. The first forty-eight hours

What needs to happen immediately, written as instructions rather than information.

• Who to call first, in order, with numbers.
• Who is the executor, and where the will physically is.
• Anyone who must be told in person rather than by message.
• Dependants: children, elderly parents, anyone who relies on you daily.
• Animals. Where they are, what they eat, which vet, what medication.
• Anything time-critical: a business that needs covering, a flight to cancel, a shift to fill, medication in a fridge.

2. Getting in

The practical access problem, which is the part nobody plans for.

• The passcode for your phone. This unlocks more of your life than anything else you own.
• Your primary email account, because nearly every other account resets through it.
• Your computer login.
• Your two factor backup codes. A password without the second factor is not access, and this is where most plans quietly fail. Keep these with the letter, never on the phone that holds the authenticator app.
• Your password manager, if you use one, and its emergency access arrangement.
• Physical keys and where they are: the house, the car, the shed, the safe, the storage unit, the office.

3. Money and the paperwork of a life

Not the balances — those change. The existence and location of things, which is what people cannot guess.

• Which banks, which building societies. An old account nobody knows about is money that is simply lost.
• Pensions, including ones from jobs you left twenty years ago.
• Insurance: life, home, car, travel, pet. Policy numbers if you have them.
• Investments, shares, crypto. Crypto in particular: without the seed phrase it is gone permanently, and no institution can help.
• Debts. Mortgage, loans, cards. Kinder to name them than to let them be discovered.
• Your accountant, solicitor, financial adviser.
• Subscriptions and direct debits worth cancelling.

4. The house

The unglamorous knowledge that lives only in your head.

• Where the stopcock is. Where the fuse box is. Which switch is which.
• The alarm code and who monitors it.
• The boiler: age, service history, the number of the person who fixes it.
• Utility providers and account numbers.
• The quirks. The back door that needs lifting. The tap that has to be turned off at the wall.

5. Work

Especially if you are self-employed or run something small.

• Who to tell, and who can cover in the short term.
• Clients with work in progress, and what state it is in.
• Where the business accounts and login details are.
• Domains, hosting, payment processor — the things that lapse silently and are painful to recover.

6. Wishes that are not legal instructions

Funeral preferences, music, whether you want a fuss. Charities you would rather people gave to. Specific objects you would like specific people to have, where it is not worth putting in the will. Be clear that these are wishes, not instructions, so nobody feels they have failed you by deciding otherwise.

7. The part that is not admin

Most people write six sections of logistics and stop. The section that is read more than all the others put together is the one at the end, addressed to the people who will be reading it.

It does not have to be long. It should not try to be profound. A few honest sentences to each of the people who matter is enough, and it is the part they will keep.

How to write it so it actually gets used

Write to someone upset and skim-reading. Short sentences. Headings. Lists. No long paragraphs. Assume the reader is having the worst week of their life and has already had four phone calls this morning.

Say where things are, not what they are worth. Values change; locations do not.

Name names and give numbers. “My accountant” is not useful. “Priya Shah at Bramble & Co, 0161 xxx xxxx, she has done my tax return since 2016” is.

Explain the why where it helps. “The savings account at First Direct is for Mum’s care costs, not part of the estate” prevents an argument that would otherwise take a year.

Date it. An undated letter of unknown age is hard to trust. A dated one tells the reader immediately how much of it to believe.

Where to keep it

This is where most letters of instruction fail. They get written, and then they sit in a drawer that nobody knows about, or in a document called important.docx on a laptop nobody can unlock.

The requirements are awkward, which is why this is hard: it must be private while you are alive, reachable quickly after you are not, and current.

With your solicitor, alongside the will. Secure and findable. The downside is friction — updating it means an appointment, so in practice it does not get updated.

In a fireproof safe, with someone knowing where the key is. Easy to update. Exposed to fire, flood, burglary and a well-meaning relative having a clear-out.

With one trusted person, in a sealed envelope. Fast and simple. Depends entirely on that one person still being findable and still having it.

In a deadman switch. The letter sits encrypted and unread, and is emailed to the person you name only if you stop checking in. It stays private, it arrives without anyone having to find anything, and because you are back in the account regularly to check in, it is the one arrangement that does not silently go stale. The trade is that you have to keep checking in — which is a real commitment, and why choosing a sensible interval matters more than anything else about it.

Whichever you choose, do the two things that make any of them work: tell one person it exists, and put a recurring reminder in your calendar to reread it once a year.

A short template

Copy this, delete what does not apply, and fill in the rest. An hour of your time.

Letter of instruction — [your name] — [today’s date]

This is not my will. My will is [where], and [name] is my executor. Nothing here overrides it. I have written this so that the practical side is easier.

Call first: [name, number, relationship] — then [name, number].

Immediately: [dependants, animals, medication, anything time-critical].

Getting in: phone passcode [ ]; email [address / how to get in]; two factor backup codes [where]; password manager [which one, emergency contact]; computer [ ]; keys [ ].

Money: banks [ ]; pensions [ ]; insurance [ ]; investments [ ]; debts [ ]; accountant [ ]; solicitor [ ].

House: stopcock [ ]; fuse box [ ]; alarm code [ ]; boiler [ ]; utilities [ ]; quirks [ ].

Work: tell [ ]; cover [ ]; logins [ ]; domains and hosting [ ].

Wishes: [funeral, charities, specific objects].

And: [the part that is not admin].

The only wrong version is the one that does not exist

A letter written in half an hour, with three sections missing and a couple of details already out of date, is enormously better than no letter. The families who struggle are never the ones whose relative wrote an imperfect version. They are the ones whose relative was definitely going to get round to it.

My Signal Vault holds a letter like this and delivers it to one person you name if you stop checking in. Files are encrypted with AES-256-GCM before they are stored, your recipient hears nothing until the day it arrives, and the free plan — one vault, 100MB of encrypted storage, no card — is enough for the letter and the documents that go with it. If you want to see how the timer works first, the help centre walks through it step by step.