ITC Legal Services - Avoid Them

portlandboy

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

Do we agree with the Grauniad news paper that these figures for a "professional" probate service are about right?

• Probate Beware solicitor and bank fees. Companies such as Final Duties promise to save 50% on the £16,000 a bank may charge for probate on a £400,000 estate or the £8,000 a solicitor may charge.

As a DIY survivor of Barclays Bank, I would not know.

In my experience, ITC stated that, by offering a "fixed fee" service, they would be 50% cheaper than a solicitor and about 75% cheaper than a bank. The rep that visited showed me a comparison sheet that listed "typical" charges for probate from banks, solicitors and ITC themselves. This was technically correct but when the final bill arrived ITC were in fact dearer than a solicitor because the "fixed fee" was for obtaining probate and did not include the £2000+ of "disbursements" and directors signature etc. etc. The bill was hyped up to more than double the "fixed fee" that they originally suggested.

Having looked at the Final Duties website, it appears that the company itself is not a firm of solicitors, nor is it regulated by any professional body. They pass your case to a "suitable firm of solicitors" who are regulated by the Law Society. This is the same sort of operation as ITC. I don't know if Final Duties are better at the job than ITC (they won't be any worse) but the same problem will arise if you are not happy with the chosen solicitors' performance - your contract would be with Final Duties not the solicitor, so you have no course of complaint to the solicitor directly.

tortoiseshellcat

Hi I've got a post in another section and someone gave me a link to this thread and now after reading a lot of the posts on here I thought I would copy my post on your thread, if that's ok. So sorry to hear of everyone's misfortune who has used ITC. This has made me realise I definitely need to avoid using them and use a local solicitor who we will be able to trust. This is my post in the family section:

Hi I hope someone can please give some advice as I'm not really sure what to do. Two weeks ago I found out that my dad had sadly passed away in June. He had left no will and therefore my sister and I are the only heirs to his estate. My aunt, (my dad's sister) (not knowing if there was a will and not knowing our whereabouts) had been recommended a company called ITC Legal by the funeral directors. She said ITC legal had paid for the funeral and got all my dad's post redirected to them (ITC) and that they are dealing with everything. ITC don't seem to have done much as they told my aunt she had to try and find a will and that she would have to try and trace my sister and I. We have read quite a few bad reviews about ITC Legal and think we would rather approach a local solicitor to deal with this matter. However do you know where we stand with this ITC Legal company? If they have all my dad's post and legal documents and therefore know all the information about his estate can we just request that they give it all to us now as we are the legal heirs and we didn't instruct them to do anything in the first place. This just feels really complicated so I hope someone can please help. Many thanks

lucylot

portlandboy wrote: »

Ah, but that isn't a "charge", that's probably a "disbursement"!
I think that's called trying your luck.:)

They can try their luck all they like, won't do them any good at all.

John_Pierpoint

portlandboy wrote: »

Having looked at the Final Duties website, it appears that the company itself is not a firm of solicitors, nor is it regulated by any professional body. They pass your case to a "suitable firm of solicitors" who are regulated by the Law Society. This is the same sort of operation as ITC. I don't know if Final Duties are better at the job than ITC (they won't be any worse) but the same problem will arise if you are not happy with the chosen solicitors' performance - your contract would be with Final Duties not the solicitor, so you have no course of complaint to the solicitor directly.

I used a service a bit like "Final Duties" to find a conveyancing solicitor (I was selling).
The cheap solicitor (about 1/3rd the cost of our "family solicitor") was a specialist in conveyancing in a cheap part of the country.
The staff were not very "creative" when little difficulties came up but I got the money on time for the price quoted.
My contract was very much with the solicitor - I assume the "find a conveyancing solicitor" web site got a kick back from the solicitor - the site also acted as "find a cheap HIP").

portlandboy

Now here's a coincidence...I just responded to a YouGov survey that just happened to be based on the subject of Probate services. It was very comprehensive and asked at least one question on almost every complaint that has ever been posted on this thread.

One question was:
"What were the reasons for your dissatisfaction? (Please tick all that apply)"
The options were:

Mistakes were made by them in dealing with the matter
Delays to the amount of time the matter took
I wasn’t treated very well by staff
Lost paperwork
The quality of service provided was poor or not up to scratch
I was not kept up to date on progress
The person dealing with my matter was more junior than the person I was led to believe would be dealing with it
Legal advice proved to be wrong
Poor value for money
The person dealing with me didn’t seem to know what he or she was doing

YouGov are following the survey up with telephone interviews:D
Obviously the subject of probate service providers is being thought about a little more now.
I so hope I'm picked

John_Pierpoint

I think we might be seeing some sort of competence regulations coming in some time - but don't hold your breath.

portlandboy

Here is a link to the BBC iPlayer site for the Rip-Off Britain that includes the ITC piece. A very appropriate advert for the company. ITC feature at about 10 mins 30 secs into the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0186bzk

Well done to "Linda" for highlighting their shoddy work.

angrygirlie

Hi posters.

I'm around but have no access to internet daily at the moment and am still doing my work on ITC to get them exposed. I will be working on my listing of other mistakes that I encountered with ITC after Christmas so I will definitely be going on the Yougov.

Watch this space!!!!!!!!

angrygirlie

portlandboy wrote: »

Here is a link to the BBC iPlayer site for the Rip-Off Britain that includes the ITC piece. A very appropriate advert for the company. ITC feature at about 10 mins 30 secs into the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0186bzk

Well done to "Linda" for highlighting their shoddy work.

Just watched this (so typical of ITC) and yet again, ITC has misinformed everyone about how they practice . I will let Rip Off Britain know about my experience. I'd like to see how ITC excuse themselves for maladministration of my mums estate. THEY ARE NOT ANY BETTER NOW AS WELL AS THEN

angrygirlie

Nearly 50,000 views!!!!!!!!!!