help please with Universal Wealth preservation Trust

le_loup

Malthusian wrote: »

Rather than they themselves, you mean. Children don't pay for their parents' care costs unless they choose to.

No. Either the parent pays the cost and the child doesn't inherit or the child inherits and I pay the cost. So the child would pay the cost in the form of a reduced inheritance if the "scheme" worked as advertised.

Dennis_Jenkins

Like others on this site, I was also taken in by Universal in 2013. I discovered things were not quite right when I saw some reviews and comments about not being able to contact Universal directly so it was then that I sent an email after seeing the notice on their website about scaling down the business. They said that if I wanted impartial information, I could contact Cohen Knights which I duly did as at the time there seemed no other possibilities and I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on. At Universal,our house was in a family trust with the Longs as trustees. We also have a deed of variation trust of which we are the trustees, also Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney but no money(fortunately) went into the trust.
To cut a long story short, Cohen Knights have been very helpful in sorting out the problems. They first did a review of all our documents and said all seemed in order except for the Longs as being Trustees. So after numerous phone conversations and e mails, they have removed the Longs as Trustees and replaced myself, my wife and my son as the new trustees and have sent us the new Land Registry Document with us on as the new trustees. They have also sent us all of the original trust documents and the wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney so we now(I hope!) are in full control.
Obviously, there has been a cost to doing this and I know that Cohen Knights were initially using the same premises as Universal but at the time, I felt I had no other option and to be fair, they did say that other firms could also do the job if I wanted.
In conclusion, I have found them very helpful.

Doc_N

Dennis_Jenkins wrote: »

Like others on this site, I was also taken in by Universal in 2013. I discovered things were not quite right when I saw some reviews and comments about not being able to contact Universal directly so it was then that I sent an email after seeing the notice on their website about scaling down the business. They said that if I wanted impartial information, I could contact Cohen Knights which I duly did as at the time there seemed no other possibilities and I wanted to get to the bottom of what was going on. At Universal,our house was in a family trust with the Longs as trustees. We also have a deed of variation trust of which we are the trustees, also Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney but no money(fortunately) went into the trust.
To cut a long story short, Cohen Knights have been very helpful in sorting out the problems. They first did a review of all our documents and said all seemed in order except for the Longs as being Trustees. So after numerous phone conversations and e mails, they have removed the Longs as Trustees and replaced myself, my wife and my son as the new trustees and have sent us the new Land Registry Document with us on as the new trustees. They have also sent us all of the original trust documents and the wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney so we now(I hope!) are in full control.
Obviously, there has been a cost to doing this and I know that Cohen Knights were initially using the same premises as Universal but at the time, I felt I had no other option and to be fair, they did say that other firms could also do the job if I wanted.
In conclusion, I have found them very helpful.

I see that you joined MSE today just to post this. No problem with that, of course, but you'll forgive me if I just comment that it does read just a tad like an advertisement for Cohen Knights.

I'm sure Cohen Knights are fine people, but, and correct me if I'm wrong, are they not completely unregulated? They're not solicitors, are they? Or members of any regulating body? Do you know anything about them at all, because they seem to have no track record, and they just seemed to appear when Universal disappeared - at the same address, I believe?

As I say, I'm sure they're fine people, whoever they are, but are you really suggesting that anybody who finds themselves in this mess should use anybody other than a solicitor or similarly regulated person to sort it all out?

You're not in any way connected with them, are you?

Dennis_Jenkins

I apologise if my entry sounds like an advert for Cohen Knights, it certainly wasn't intended to be and I have no connection with them whatsoever apart for them doing the work for me that I have outlined. I just wanted to let people know that I was also a victim of Universal and at the time Cohen Knights seemed to be the only way forward(there seemed no other option then) as they were able to access my files fairly easily(presumably because some former employees of Universal are at Cohen Knights). The main thing is that I now have all of my original documents and the Longs have been removed as trustees and replaced by myself, my wife and my son.
Another solicitor did write earlier on this site also saying they understood Cohen Knights had been helpful to some clients but I did not wish to promote them, especially as many other firms now appear to be willing to sort out the problems caused by Universal.

Gramacho

Hi Doc ,
Are you aware the Longs are still attending court on the 21st July in Ipswich .
I haven’t been able to locate any information at all .

Thanks in advance

Peripatetic

As this date is a Saturday are there any court cases?. Has anybody heard anything?

Twopints

BBC article

The investigation will be broadcast on BBC Inside Out East on BBC One on Monday at 19:30 BST.

dunstonh

And once again, we have another thread where regular posters warned about the issues in 2014 but MSE deleted or edited their posts and warned posters not to continue posting about those things. And once again, like other threads, the company is found wanting and consumers being potentially out of pocket.

For a consumer site, MSE doesn't really like protecting consumers.

jimjames

Quite shocking really that all the signs were there. All it takes are lawyers to intimidate the sites hosting any content that could alert people to the situation

Doc_N

dunstonh wrote: »

And once again, we have another thread where regular posters warned about the issues in 2014 but MSE deleted or edited their posts and warned posters not to continue posting about those things. And once again, like other threads, the company is found wanting and consumers being potentially out of pocket.

For a consumer site, MSE doesn't really like protecting consumers.

You do make a very good point there, for those of us who remember all too well what happened.

If somebody from MSE had properly taken on board what was really going on and done something about it instead of just going along with muzzling those who were sounding alarm bells a lot of people might not have lost a lot of money.

Not a good outcome for MSE, was it.