Will Aid is endorsed by the Probate Section of the Law Society who encourage their members to participate.

Will Aid is one of the most effective fundraising campaigns and depends on a unique partnership with the legal profession. Will Aid would like more solicitors to join to meet the demand from Will makers. To register as a Will Aid solicitor and take part in this years campaign log on to www.willaid.org.uk/solicitors

Be Safe and use Certainty to register your will on the UK’s National Will Register.

Importantly, private client retention and development has been cleverly integrated into Certainty. This ensures Certainty is a powerful and vital resource for firms to help protect and increase private client work.

With the legal landscape changing daily and at a pace, Certainty’s success is testimony to the tangible benefits that are being realised by Private Client teams all over the UK everyday.

To find out more please contact Certainty on 0845 408 0404 or email solicitors@certainty.co.uk.
Be Safe and use Certainty to register your will on the UK’s National Will Register.

Certainty has been touring the country meeting Wills & Probate solicitors and STEP members at various legal conferences. At these conferences Certainty provides a brief overview of Will Search and Will Registration and the innovative Will management and marketing system ‘TOUCH’. If you are attending the forthcoming STEP conference then please do not hesitate to visit the Certainty stand for this brief and very valuable overview.

Be Safe and use Certainty to register your will on the UK’s National Will Register.

This should be an issue of choice which does not rely on everyone else being compelled to do the same. After all, making a choice to ensure traceability of a Will is only relevant to the person who has chosen to register. Importantly the Ministry of Justice has recently confirmed to Certainty that they have no plans to make registration of a Will compulsory, a position acknowledged by most of the legal profession.

However, this does not remove the need to deliver a viable register in order that the public can make the choice to protect themselves. Significantly the Ministry of Justice has given their sanction for a voluntary viable register to offer this choice. In a recent survey 77% of the public questioned said they welcomed and would use a voluntary register and a similar percentage was sceptical about using a government-led initiative.

Certainty meets the need required by the public. Certainty offers a search facility for both registered and unregistered Wills. Therefore even if a client hasn’t registered their Will it can still be searched for after death. In conclusion it should be recognised that compulsory Will registration is highly unlikely in the UK. Certainty has provided a viable voluntary register which works in the best interests of both the public the profession.

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.

But what about the many “tens of thousands of people” who die intestate each year? The Law Commission quote this figure as background to their current review of the law of intestacy. They add: “National Consumer Council research suggests that more than 27 million adults in England and Wales do not have a Will and that those who need one most are the least likely to have one…nearly one quarter of 55 to 64 year-olds have personal experience of the human and economic costs associated with intestacy or know someone who has.

“The problems caused range from inconvenience, to serious hardship or distress. Equally, applications under the family provision legislation can be expensive, and damaging to family relationships.”

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.

The site offers the public an extremely focused and valuable source of information regarding all matters Wills & Probate and provides instant access to their local Will & Probate solicitor. The visits are growing month-on-month and we believe that we will break through the 250,000 visits to the Certainty web site this year. This is extremely significant when you consider that public internet usage is at an all-time high with a large percentage using it to source a specific service.”

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.

Solicitors as Will draftsmen.
We must distinguish between a solicitor’s duty of care owed to his client (and, in Will making, to those for whom an act of negligence will also result in a foreseeable loss) and client care. A breach of the duty of care will result in an action for negligence which is “overseen” by the Courts. Client care is partly good practice and also compliance with the profession’s practice rules. Any breach of our client care rules is “policed” by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Legal Complaints Service and can result in reduced fees, orders to pay compensation and even removal from the roll for unprofessional conduct.

Thus, whilst we can as a self-regulating profession choose to alter our practice rules and how they are implemented, we cannot alter our duty of care imposed under the law. This would probably now require an Act of Parliament.

To compete with the untrained and unregulated offerings lawyers have been told to commoditise their practices; engage in the use of technology; write Wills over the internet and generally lower the cost of providing Wills. Can we do this?

The non-regulated sector.

The untrained and unregulated Will writers operate in a diverse and fragmented low-cost market. If a claim is made for negligent service this type of business is probably uninsured and can be closed down without any impact on the service provider. Without the service being regulated there is no regulatory body whose code of conduct applies and which could be withdrawn from the provider making it impossible for them to continue to work in this field.

Regulation for all!

A regulated Will drafting service will presumably require, as now, its service providers to be insured and properly trained. It would have some kind of complaints-handing service and regulatory code by which members could be disciplined and ultimately have their livelihood removed for serious breaches. This would give recognition to those providers with whom solicitors compete who are willing to meet the same standards. Can the standard be lowered from that which applies to solicitors without damaging the product?

Solicitors know from experience that the negligence tail on incorrectly drafted Wills is long – some 20 years – so the potential costs of providing a regulated service is well known to lawyers. It has to be admitted that the cost of regulation is off-putting to new entrants to any business but sometimes the public interest is more important than consumerism.

Protecting the unwary and the vulnerable.

It is not protectionism to want to see all providers having to meet some basic standards and to enable the currently heavily regulated solicitor to have the opportunity to offer to some clients an ‘opt out’ of the traditional duty of care so that the sophisticated could purchase a legal service which is not covered by the current requirements of the Solicitor’s Code of Conduct.

Questions for the Legal Services Board.

One software firm in offering their system to solicitors makes a distinction between customers and clients and only regards solicitors as having to comply with client care rules at the point the person seeks advice. Will the Board be willing to make this distinction if the “customer” buys the form from a regulated practice even without any further input from the firm?

How can the Legal Services Board address the duty of care in Will drafting to enable all service providers to offer a Will service over the web or remotely or in a more commoditised fashion? A large disclaimer indicating that the Will drafting service would not cover certain situations such as overseas assets or inadequate information might be effective, but surely you cannot disclaim a failure to ascertain undue influence or fraud. Would it be possible for the Legal Services Board in regulating Will drafting to confirm which disclaimers or restricted retainers work?

Conclusion.

The danger is that the difficulty of preparing a suitable regulatory framework for all providers and protection for the vulnerable and unsophisticated may result in a decision not to regulate and therefore leave the solicitor in a non-competitive position. We all need to think of ways in which a suitable balance can be achieved to make it possible to regulate fairly.

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.

• The estate is deemed intestate, so the testator’s wishes are in effect ignored.
• The solicitor who prepared the undiscovered Will loses the probate work.

The Certainty National Will Register addresses both of these issues. It enables a solicitor to register or search for a Will in just 60 seconds, safeguarding the interests of public and the profession alike. But the benefits don’t stop there because Certainty also provide the means of turning a firms Will bank into a source of future business.

Certainty has integrated a free Will management and marketing system giving a firm access to a very powerful revenue building resource. Registering a Will with Certainty automatically sets up a scheduled chain of events, including periodic Will review notifications, complete with precedent letters and associated marketing collateral. By empowering the firm to easily and effectively keep in touch with their client base, Certainty’s system assists to generate new instructions without distraction from the demands of the daily workload.

The benefits are both long-term and immediate. Registration means that the testator’s family can quickly find which firm prepared the deceased’s Will and give them probate instructions. At the same time Certainty enables Will and Probate practitioners to easily access the ‘new marketing culture’, triggered at the point of Will registration. It also allows cross-selling of the firm’s range of private client and commercial services.

The Certainty National Will Register with its localised search engine puts every member firm on the internet, increasingly the first port of call for clients looking for a reliable service.

In the face of the impending Legal Services Act it gives the profession a powerful competitive edge against unregulated competitors, licensed conveyancers seeking a foothold in probate work and supermarkets alike.

Certainty’s rounded approach – with its absolute focus on regulated professionals – enables the Will and Probate practitioner to prepare for and succeed in this fast-changing marketplace.

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.

Ageing is expected in any population and looking after elderly relatives is only one part of this community wide problem. People of any age who are rendered unable to look after themselves properly as a result of disease or accident can also need help and assistance in dealings regarding their money and belongings, as well as in dealings regarding their well being and healthcare.

We all like to be in control for as long as we possibly can manage to. The thought of growing old and having things done to us that we may or may not agree with is a worry. It doesn’t have to be like that. You can stay in control. You can choose your carers and those who will look after your property and affairs. That’s what a lasting powers of attorney is designed to do for you in essence.

The procedure of making a lasting powers of attorney is fairly easy. It involves these steps:

1. The person wishing to make a lasting powers of attorney must first designate an Attorney or Attorneys of his or her choice.

2. The person wishing to make a lasting powers of attorney needs someone to provide a certificate confirming their circumstances and capabilities or lack of them.

3. The lasting powers of attorney must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian in order to be a legal and binding document before it can be used.

4. Part of the registration process of an lasting powers of attorney usually requires that certain key people need to be informed of this happening.

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.

My elderly parents have expressed interest in giving me lasting powers of attorney. On reasearching the subject, it appears that there are two types. The Personal and Welfare lasting powers of attorney allows a person to hand over the decision-making powers in regard to their healthcare and welfare to a responsible person of their choosing. The Property and Affairs lasting powers of attorney allows a person to hand over the decision-making powers in regard to their property and affairs to a responsible person of their choosing.

Making a lasting powers of attorney allows a person to have control over whom they wish to have appointed as the person who makes decisions on their behalf in regards to their personal welfare and health situation, as well as in regards to matters concerning their property and personal affairs. Your solicitor may also be appointed as professional Attorney if desired.

If you do not make a lasting powers of attorney and set out what should happen if you become incapacitated, or when you become too old to manage, the Court will step in and do this for you. A deputy could be appointed by the Court of Protection whose duty it will be to manage your affairs under the supervision of the Court. Obviously this prospect is a worry to my parents so I will see their solicitor for further advice.

Be Safe and use Certainty to register a will on the UK’s National Will Register.