The impact of leaving your home in your will
By leaving your home to Shelter in your will, you can give real change to families fighting for their right to a safe home.
The gift of your home could help to bring about a fairer housing system and a more just society for generations to come.
Why your gift is important
One in three people in Britain are impacted by the housing emergency – living in dangerous, unstable or unaffordable housing.
Successive governments have failed to build the genuinely affordable social housing people need, pushing families into homelessness. In England:
117,450 households are homeless in temporary accommodation
151,630 children are homeless in temporary accommodation
3,898 people were recorded sleeping rough on a given night
We need change – real change. The gift of your home in your will could help make it happen.
How your home could make a difference
We won't give up the fight for housing justice. By leaving your home to Shelter, you'll be part of the big change needed to end the housing emergency.
Your gift could help to:
put pressure on the government, demanding policies that support people at risk of homelessness
galvanise our campaign for new social homes to be built across the country
fight for renters’ rights, protecting people from exploitation
provide vital advice and support to people when they need it most
Hear from Sireena, who we supported to find a safe, secure social home:
Last year we helped millions of people facing homelessness, like Sireena
Read more about our impact
By including your home in your will to Shelter, you could give families like Sireena's real change.
A property worth £290,000 could help to:
keep our helpline and webchat service going for 60 days, helping 10,620 people
fund six new helpline advisers, supporting an additional 9,000 people each year, or
pay for legal advice to help 1,847 families in crisis keep their home
What will happen to your home
If you choose to leave your home to Shelter in your will, it's important to know that Shelter does not retain or manage properties and we do not usually deal with the sale of properties directly. We suggest that you leave the 'net sale proceeds' of your property in your will, and that your executor – the person responsible for carrying out the terms of your will – is responsible for arranging the sale of the property and transferring the proceeds to Shelter.
At the moment, we believe that we can make the biggest impact by investing the sale proceeds from properties in our front-line independent housing advice services and our campaigns to fundamentally change housing laws in the UK. In this way, a single property can give stability and security to thousands of people.
We know that the housing system is broken, and we believe that this approach is the best way to secure the real change that we need to see in our country for future generations.
Next steps
See our key considerations to find out more about the process of leaving your home in your will.
Key considerationsContact us
If you have any questions about leaving your home in your will to Shelter, we're here to help. Please contact our Gifts in Wills team on 0344 515 1617 or at legacies@shelter.org.uk