Wills and Probate | Certainty National Will Register Blog

Published: 4 October 2009 Source: Julian Knight and Chiara Cavaglieri, Independent

Enticing offers of discount or even free will-writing services may sound harmless enough, but many families who take this route risk paying dearly when it comes to sorting out the eventual estate. Will-writing companies, banks and solicitors may be taking consumers for a ride by appointing themselves as executors in the will and charging over the odds for taking an estate through probate.

Some banks and will-writers can offer their services as a loss leader; they can recoup their money tenfold by ensuring they are included in the will as executors, then levying bumper fees when the testator passes away. After death, it is difficult to remove executors from a will; as a result, estates can be hit with unspecified charges of as much as 4.5 per cent, or £22,500 on a £500,000 estate.

“Wills are now also being written by unqualified people who have no professional ethics whatsoever,” says Adam Walker, the director of Final Duties, an independent probate broker.

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Published: Oct 19 2009 Source: Madeleine Brindley, South Wales Echo

CARDIFF residents have left £2.4m to Cancer Research UK in their wills over the last year, figures reveal.

The charity said that local supporters are playing a vital role in Cancer Research UK’s vision to beat cancer by helping to fund its life-saving research.

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Published: Sep 26 2009 Source: Stephen Womack, Daily Mail

Families are being urged to take prompt action to cut potential inheritance tax bills amid fears that the precarious state of the country’s public finances could mean an end to generous thresholds. Inheritance tax (IHT) is charged at 40 per cent on legacies, though bequests to a spouse or charity are free of tax and the first £325,000 of any other bequest is tax-free.

Growing public resentment over the increasing number of people forced to pay inheritance tax has pushed the tax up the political agenda. In October 2007, the Conservative party pledged to raise the threshold at which the tax kicks in to £1million, allowing a couple to pass on £2million of wealth between them.

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Published: Oct 14 2009 Source: Graeme Brown, Birmingham Post

A Midland lawyer who specialises in services for the elderly has warned that some unqualified will writing services are the equivalent of cowboy operators in the building trade.

Fiona Barnes, a partner at Shropshire-based MFG Solicitors and head of the firm’s private client division, warns that dying without a will is bad enough but a badly written or out of date will could be just as dangerous.

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Source: Money Talk, BBC
By Edward Chivers
Buss Murton solicitors

Last week Christine Gill successfully challenged her mother’s Will which had left more than £2m to the RSPCA.

This court challenge is likely to result in an appeal by the animal charity.

But it is just the latest in a long line of high profile, and often bitter, disputes surrounding the estates of deceased family members.

Challenging a Will is an expensive undertaking, both in terms of time, money and emotional effort.

Accusations fly, families squabble, charities huff and puff, and someone has to pick up the tab.

Yet it does not seem to deter an increasing number of individuals from challenging the Wills of deceased family members.

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The primary purpose of the Certainty National Will Register is to give each individual member of the public an opportunity to safeguard their most important document and so protect their family from further distress after their death.

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.

Paul Bricknell of Liverpool solicitors Mace & Jones, a Certainty founder-member firm, says: “Making a Will is not the only important step to take. There is no doubt that every year people’s estates are administered as if they were intestate, even if they had prepared a Will, simply because no one knows where the Will is kept. The Certainty service enables families to find the Will even where they have no idea as to where it is stored.”

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.

Certainty announced it has received in excess of 90,000 hits to its website from the public within the first 12 months of going live. Lea Bellion, Head of Customer Relations, Certainty says: “We are extremely pleased with the amount of visits to the Certainty website from members of the public.

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The vexed question of whether or not Will drafting should be regulated has dogged the legal world for years. However, as we await deliberations on the regulation of solicitors by Lord Hunt on behalf of the Law Society and the decision of the newly created Legal Services Board on which legal services should be regulated and which need not, it seems timely to re-visit this question.

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Registering a client’s Will delivers real benefits to the Wills and Probate professional in addition to the families of the deceased. For if a Will cannot be found the consequences may be two-fold:

• 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.

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