Consumer Power: Should will writers be regulated?

KoreArabin

RAS wrote: »

No-one who is involved in writing a will should be allowed to store it or be named as executor, either as an individual or other legal entity. Nor should the storage provider or executor be related in any legal way to person or company writing a will, including shared directorships and contractual relationships.

Certainty, the National Will Register, disagrees with you. It requires a will to be held by a firm of solicitors before the will can be registered on its database.

I understand that Certainty representatives have been meeting with European law makers to discuss making will registration a cross-European matter, rather than dependent on local laws/customs.

This would certainly help to avoid the problem of lost/missing wills, or wills dumped in barns by Will Writers that many people have encountered.

KoreArabin

stevepett wrote: »

You should also ask the solicitor how many hours training he had done on (SPECIFICALLY) Wills in the last 12 months, and when his last Will Writing training took place and what it consisted of. Some solicitors have had 30 minutes attending a lecture in Law School and that is it. At least members of the Society of Will Writers and the IPW are required to carry out a minimum of 16 hours ongoing training every year in this fast moving area.


And just to REALLY wind up solicitors reading this, a sure sign of lack of professional competence is when the solicitor doesn't bother to try to persuade you to take out Lasting Powers of Attorney (you need two - Property and Affairs and Health & Welfare - one if you already have an Enduring Power of Attorney).

Stephen Pett

What an odd post! No reputable solicitor would "try to persuade you to take out Lasting Powers of Attorney". Solicitors discuss what LPAs are, and how they might benefit the client, but, unlike Will Writers (apparently), aren't hard sell merchants!

Solicitors are required to carry out 16 hours of continuing professional training each year, not 30 minutes as you've claimed.

Anyone thinking of having a will prepared by a Will Writer would be well advised to first look up BBC Panorama's "Wills - The Final Rip Off?" programme, which was aired last summer.

stevepett

KoreArabin wrote: »

What an odd post! No reputable solicitor would "try to persuade you to take out Lasting Powers of Attorney". Solicitors discuss what LPAs are, and how they might benefit the client, but, unlike Will Writers (apparently), aren't hard sell merchants!

Solicitors are required to carry out 16 hours of continuing professional training each year, not 30 minutes as you've claimed.

Anyone thinking of having a will prepared by a Will Writer would be well advised to first look up BBC Panorama's "Wills - The Final Rip Off?" programme, which was aired last summer.

So what you are implying is that solicitors who write Wills are required to spend 16 hours a year keeping up to date on Wills?

If you are not just trying to mislead, I am afraid you are entirely wrong. Solicitors do have to carry out (I believe) 35 hours training a year, but NOT ONE MINUTE OF IT is REQUIRED to be on Wills to qualify them to carry on writing Wills. Many of course do take it seriously - but many just think that Will writing is easy! The rest can self certify that they are competent - scary stuff!


Lasting Powers of Attorney are vital, and, like Wills, every client should at the very least sign a disclaimer to say that they have refuesed to take your advice to write them. Its a bit like going to a garage with failed brakes and just getting the headlight fixed.

I used to send people to solicitors to write Wills, but the majority of the solicitors, though meeting the clients face to face, never bothered to sort out the Wills which their clients had requested.

Errata

I used to send people to solicitors to write Wills, but the majority of the solicitors, though meeting the clients face to face, never bothered to sort out the Wills which their clients had requested.

This is nothing more than a wild generalisation with no factual substance. If your 'opinion' is shared by willwriters in general, I feel that alone is sufficient reason for not using them to draw up a will.

KoreArabin

stevepett wrote: »

So what you are implying is that solicitors who write Wills are required to spend 16 hours a year keeping up to date on Wills?

If you are not just trying to mislead, I am afraid you are entirely wrong. Solicitors do have to carry out (I believe) 35 hours training a year, but NOT ONE MINUTE OF IT is REQUIRED to be on Wills to qualify them to carry on writing Wills. Many of course do take it seriously - but many just think that Will writing is easy! The rest can self certify that they are competent - scary stuff!


Lasting Powers of Attorney are vital, and, like Wills, every client should at the very least sign a disclaimer to say that they have refuesed to take your advice to write them. Its a bit like going to a garage with failed brakes and just getting the headlight fixed.

I used to send people to solicitors to write Wills, but the majority of the solicitors, though meeting the clients face to face, never bothered to sort out the Wills which their clients had requested.

Again, you are wrong. Solicitors do not have to carry out 35 hours of training per year. However, they do have to complete 16 hours of continuing professional training, which will of course be relevant to their area of expertise. Or are you suggesting that a company lawyer signs up for training on divorce law for fun?

Writing wills is relatively straightforward. What is far more complex is keeping up to date with all of the law surrounding the making of a will, such as tax mitigation, the legal and tax treatment of trusts, inheritance act claims, estoppel etc etc etc.

Anyone can write something along the lines of "I, Joe Bloggs, leave my estate to the Cats Home", (which is why anyone can set themselves up as a "Will Writer"). However, it takes specialist knowledge to advise a client on their will in the context of their particular circumstances.

stevepett

Errata wrote: »

This is nothing more than a wild generalisation with no factual substance. If your 'opinion' is shared by willwriters in general, I feel that alone is sufficient reason for not using them to draw up a will.

No, it is fact, carefully researched over 25 years.
There would be no demand for Will Writers if solicitors took the role of legal adviser seriously.

IMHO most could be sued for professional negligence for NOT trying to persuade clients to take Wills and LPAs - and when solicitors no longer rule the roost I am quite certain that will happen.

How can you call yourself a legal adviser if you don't advise on necessities unless you are asked.

But PLEASE don't take any notice of me!!!!!!

Errata

stevepett wrote: »

No, it is fact, carefully researched over 25 years.
There would be no demand for Will Writers if solicitors took the role of legal adviser seriously.

IMHO most could be sued for professional negligence for NOT trying to persuade clients to take Wills and LPAs - and when solicitors no longer rule the roost I am quite certain that will happen.

How can you call yourself a legal adviser if you don't advise on necessities unless you are asked.

But PLEASE don't take any notice of me!!!!!!

In that case you are clearly in a position to post links to all the research papers and studies that have been conducted over 25 years that prove this 'fact'.

stevepett

For 25 years I was an IFA doing a large number of mortgages.
As a decent adviser, it was my job to point out holes in peoples planning.
So we always recommended that people wrote Wills, and actually phoned the solicitors dealing with the conveyancing, when the client was with us, to confirm that the client would like a Will prepared alongside the conveyancing work.
Being a professional IFA, clients were offer reviews every year, and only a tiny tiny tiny percentage ever got their Wills done.

So no fancy stats or reports, just 25 years of experience which convinced me that solicitors did not take their responsibility to their clients seriously enough to write Wills even when they were specifically asked to.

I gradually learned more and more about Will writing as I felt it was vital that the issue was dealt with, and (in time) gained sufficient knowledge to be able to do this myself, mentored by a former General Manager of STEP and by the author of Perfect Will. My whole career is n=now based on filling the gaps in legal planning which solicitors haven't bothered to. I attend at least 10 regional meetings of the Society of Will Writers (in Sussex) every year, and usually get to their annual conference. I spend well over £1,500 a year on relevant books and research tools.

Until Enduring Powers of Attorney were stopped, we persuaded 94% of our clients to shell out an additional £45 for the best all round protection, though this percentage has dropped substantially with the introduction of Lasting Powers of Attorney.

We are proud of our efforts to educate, inform and implement protection strategies for our clients.

But if solicitors did their jobs properly, we wouldn't exist, never mind be part of a rapidly growing group of para legals.

sloughflint

KoreArabin wrote: »

Certainty, the National Will Register, disagrees with you. It requires a will to be held by a firm of solicitors before the will can be registered on its database.

So it charges £25 just to record the location of the Will and this must be a firm of solicitors?
Cheaper option here.

PhiltheBear

stevepett wrote: »

For 25 years I was an IFA doing a large number of mortgages.........

So no fancy stats or reports, just 25 years of experience .......

Yep, and the first 'will writer' I met was an IFA who'd joined a 'professional society' and done their courses and bought their software. (Funnily enough he was from Sussex too). He didn't have a clue. He actually wrote a will for someone which contained the immortal phrase "I leave all my money to my wife..."

I'm sure you think that supplying mortgage advice equates to probate expertise - but it doesn't. And experience isn't the same as knowledge.

I totally agree that many solicitors are useless in the will writing area - but there are, believe it or not, probate specialists in many solicitors partnerships and they'd outgun any of the supposed independents any day of the week.

But it's also true that the vast majority of wills are, in fact, really easy and could just as easily be written on a form from a stationer.