Do you Hold the missing Will?
Thursday, December 3rd, 2009
In a recent poll of 200 solicitors 98% said that they held Wills where the testator has died but had not had the opportunity to administer the Will because the family could not find them.
Searching for a Will has never been so simple. Certainty’s Will Search service replaces the haphazard system under which a family has to ³guess² which law firm might have custody of a loved one’s Will. All too often Wills are deemed lost or presumed never written and are difficult to trace, near impossible some would say.
Apart from the beneficiaries anguish, not being able to find a Will has detrimental effects on the solicitor who wrote it. They do not get the opportunity to administer the Will and indeed the opportunity to take care of the testators’ beneficiaries.
A consumer survey commissioned by Certainty showed that 67% of people do not know where their parents’ Wills are located. There can be many reasons why a Will cannot be located and therefore is presumed lost or indeed never written. The passage of time, house moves and even malicious destruction are all key factors as to why the Will cannot be found when it is needed. This is extremely unfortunate when in most cases the Will is safely stored in a solicitor’s office somewhere.
Certainty has changed the way the legal profession can search for a Will.
This is due to Certainty’s revolutionary National Will Search service. The Law Society has endorsed Certainty as the exclusive provider of a Will Search service for the legal profession. The Certainty Will Search technology is highly intelligent and took two years to develop. To action a Will search takes just 60 seconds. Most importantly you can activate this search from your desk without the need for software or any IT upgrade giving you immediate access, saving time, effort and cost traditionally associated with generating letters and postal charges.
Indeed a comprehensive National Will Search can be performed in most cases for less than the cost of the postage alone.
The Certainty National Will register can search for a registered or an unregistered Will at the touch of a button.
According to the Law Commission, many tens of thousands of people die intestate each year, causing human and economic costs for large number of families when they are already financially and emotionally vulnerable.
Mark Bradley, Certainty comments: ³Through research it is clear that many solicitors hold Wills where the testator has died but have not had the probate work. Being unaware of which solicitor wrote the Will is inevitable in the absence of an effective Will Search service, Certainty’s Will Search service is changing this situation in an extremely positive way for the profession.
Be Safe and use Certainty to register your will on the UK’s National Will Register.
