Searching for a Will is no longer time consuming, cumbersome and expensive. Therefore, we feel is may be helpful to inform you of the Will search options which are now available to the legal profession.
The Legal Ombudsman have published their first report, listing will-writing by unregulated will-writers as one of the most common complaints they receive. Unfortunately, as the Legal Ombudsman can only act on complaints made against regulated solicitors, these complaints cannot be followed up.
Protect yourself by using a solicitor practising in Wills and Probate, who as they are regulated there is the help available if things go wrong.
Your recent article, Rise in number of intestacy disputes, highlighted two interesting issues: hard times encourage people to contest inheritances; and intestacies offer more opportunities for such disputes to take place. My summary of this state of affairs is that necessity and greed are powerful motivators of human behaviour, and death brings out the best and worst in us.
Even if the numbers in the Wedlake Bell research are not huge, the trend is worrying. And it is easy to imagine that, in straitened times, the rapid and relatively steep rise in inheritance disputes will only get steeper.
A hairdresser who inherited £380,000 from two elderly sisters will have to repay the money after a judge ruled that an earlier will leaving the estate to their family was binding.
Eccentric siblings Ethel Willson and Mabel Cook, described as like ‘peas in a pod’, drew up a joint will in 1991 leaving their possessions to their family and friends.
Mrs Cook died aged 83 in 1995, but in 2006 her younger sister dramatically changed the will, just two months before her own death aged 92, leaving all but £10,000 of the estate to their hairdresser Jill Fraser.
Paul Hewitt, a partner at the leading law firm Withers, said that under a recent change in the law, the court dealing with those who cannot decide to whom they should leave their money must decide what would be in their “best interests”.
As part of this, judges assume that the person in question would want to be remembered fondly by their family and as having “done the right thing in their will”. This means that estates are often disposed of in favour of friends or relatives, under “statutory wills”, even if they have only recently come into the life of a vulnerable person. Under English law, people have long had the right to make “eccentric” wills and do not have to explain why, for instance, they chose to disinherit their children. But courts can make a “statutory will” when someone lacks capacity to do so, usually if they never made one or if there has been a significant change in their family or fortune since they made a valid will but they can no longer make a new one.
Since joining Certainty 6 months ago Morrisons Solicitors has registered over 400 Wills on behalf of their clients. Morrisons is a typical example of a firm that has embraced Will registration and used it to create a very positive effect for both client and firm.
In the last few months I have been asked to advise a number of small and medium sized firms on how to develop their private client department. As part of the planning process I asked each of these firms who they regarded as their competition? Every firm e-mailed me back a list of half a dozen or so other traditional legal practices in their town, city or local market place.
A national Will Register is not a new idea. Lack of technology and funding has previously hampered the implementation of an effective Will Register.
My fellow legal colleagues and I joined Certainty because we realised it had taken an old idea (a Wills Register), grabbed it by the scruff of the neck and turned it into something that produces enormous marketing, fee earning and client-enhancing benefits for the Wills & Probate professional.
During the last 12 months hundreds of solicitors’ practices in England & Wales have joined Certainty in order to offer their clients the unique benefits that Certainty’s on-line national Will Register service provides. We asked four firms for their comments on progress so far.
Reading-based Boyes Turner is one of the UK’s leading full service law firms. They work with many of the world’s largest multinationals and successful UK and European businesses – as well as looking after private clients’ interests.
A national will register is not a new idea. Lack of technology and funding has previously hampered the implementation of an effective will register.
