Editorial and Review Policy: How I Keep This Site Accurate
By Alex Johnson · Published 21 August 2026
Why this page exists
This site deals with wills, letters of wishes, executor guidance, inheritance tax, powers of attorney and end-of-life decisions. Get any of that wrong and the consequences land on somebody's family at the worst possible moment. So you are entitled to know who writes this death planning site, where the facts come from, what I check, and what I do when I get something wrong.
Most websites bury this sort of thing, or skip it entirely. I would rather set it out plainly, because if you cannot see how the sausage is made, you have no reason to trust the sausage (well you get the idea!).
Who writes this site
Everything on Not So Grave is written by me, Alex Johnson. Not by a content agency, not by a rotating cast of freelancers, and not by an AI writing tool left to its own devices. If a page says something, I wrote it and I stand behind it.
My qualification for this is experience rather than letters after my name. My father died suddenly in 2023 and I administered his estate as the sole executor. I've also been heavily involved in the administration of the estate of another family member in 2024. I learned, in the way you only learn by doing it while grieving, which parts of death planning matter, which are quietly optional, and which nobody warns you about. That experience runs through every page here.
Where the facts come from
I use a combination of a customised AI Large Language Model, programmed specifically for this site, and my own Search Engine lookups. Every figure, threshold, rate, fee and legal rule on this site is checked against a primary source at the time of writing. In practice that means:
gov.uk and HMRC for tax thresholds, statutory fees, benefit rates and legal processes
The Office of the Public Guardian for powers of attorney
NHS and NHS Blood and Transplant for medical and organ donation guidance
Named industry bodies where relevant, such as the Association of British Insurers, or established charities such as Macmillan, Marie Curie and Cruse
Where a figure changes with the tax year or the Bank of England base rate, I note the date it applies from, so you can see at a glance whether you are reading something current or something that has moved on since.
I do not take figures from other advice sites, comparison sites or content farms, however confidently they state them, unless they have directly commissioned the data (like their own survey, for example). If I cannot verify something against a primary source, it does not go on the page.
What I check, and when
Pages containing figures, thresholds or legal rules are reviewed when:
The tax year changes, or a Budget or Finance Act alters something relevant
A reader tells me something looks wrong
I am working on that page for any other reason
Where a page carries a date, that date tells you when the content was last meaningfully reviewed, not merely when a typo was fixed. I would rather show you an honest older date than reset it every time I nudge a comma.
I use an AI tool which runs in the background every month to review the data on the pages and looks up to see if there have been any changes in law, regulation, guidance etc. It then informs me of the outcome. I then set time aside to further investigate and, where appropriate, make changes. This way, I can be confident - though not certain - in the data being up to date.
What I am not
I am not a solicitor, a regulated financial adviser, a tax adviser or a medical professional. I do not hold professional indemnity insurance and I am not regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority, the Solicitors Regulation Authority or anybody else.
What that means in practice: this site explains, it does not advise. I will tell you how inheritance tax works, what a discretionary trust does, and what happens if you die without a will. I will not tell you what you personally should do with your estate, because I do not know your circumstances and I am not qualified to assess them.
Throughout the site I flag the points where I think professional help is worth paying for, and, just as importantly, the points where I think it is not. That is a judgement, not advice, and you are free to disagree with it.
Jurisdiction
UK law is not uniform. Wills, intestacy, powers of attorney and estate administration all differ between England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.
This site works from England and Wales as the default, because that is where most of my readers are, and flags the significant differences where they arise. I do not flag every minor variation, because a page peppered with caveats becomes useless to everybody. Where a difference genuinely changes what you should do, it is called out. If you are in Scotland or Northern Ireland, treat those call-outs as a prompt to check local guidance before acting.
Commercial relationships
Some pages on this site contain affiliate links, which means I may earn a commission if you buy something through them. This never costs you anything extra, and it never determines what I recommend or how I rank anything. If you want to know more, you can go to my page on Affiliate Disclosure.
The bereavement section, Dealing With Death, contains no paid links of any kind, and it never will. If you have arrived there, you are having a bad enough day without being sold to.
If you spot a mistake
Please tell me. Use the contact page and point me at the page and the specific thing that looks wrong.
I will check it against the primary source, and if you are right I will correct it, promptly and without fuss. If the error was significant, I will note the correction and the date on the page itself rather than quietly editing and pretending it never happened.
I would genuinely rather be told than not told. A site like this is only as good as its worst page, and I cannot fix what I do not know about.
“Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, but not their own facts.”
Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Get my no-nonsense death planning tips and latest news articles straight to your inbox - with a sprinkle of humour.
Bite-sized, practical and actionable advice that might just be the most valuable email you receive all month.
Plus get access to ALL my death-proofing templates in ONE place.
About the founder. I'm Alex Johnson, and I built Not So Grave after my father died suddenly in 2023. Going through his estate taught me more about death planning than any guide I could find at the time, partly because of the documents he'd left, and partly because of the gaps where he hadn't. I'm not a solicitor or a financial adviser, and I'll always tell you when to use one. What I am is someone who's been through it and wants to make your turn easier.