Making Wills - Accounts detail

sleepymans

After 20 years OH and I need to have new wills written. We have made an appt with the firm of Solicitors that hold our current wills and have received a questionnaire to complete and return before the meeting.

The questionnaire is 13 A$ pages long! We also got a terms and conditions type letter which we have to return a 2nd signed copy of, to confirm we have had it. All OK apart from a couple of issues.

1. The terms and conditions letter includes a lot of information on preparing LPAs (Lasting Powers of Attorney) and in my opinion muddies the water rather. We want to make wills not LPA's. We might make LPAs in about a years time when we retire but dont feel the need at the moment. Partly because all our assets and domestics are joint and so either could act for each or both of us anyway.

2. The Qustionaire starts off collecting relevant information, facts and so on, thats no problem. However, about 10 pages in it asks for all our bank and building society account numbers and sort codes, and the amounts of money in them! Why on earth do they need that detail now? They know that IHT is not an issue with our level of potential estate.

I suspect they might be "fishing" for investment planning advice business, if not for their firm then for some associates. We maintain a file at home with the information for "when the time comes" but it is a fluid ever-changing situation as I rate-chase regularly moving money, opening new and closing old accounts to try and make the most of our assets. So any details I write down now, probably will be different by the time the wills are written.

In fact they will be as I will be opening another 2 TSB Plus accounts over the next few days to chase the 5% deal.

Do all solicitors want all this information?

madbadrob

I have no idea to whether all solicitors want this but I would ring them up and ask why or just refuse to give them that info

Rob

troubleinparadise

LPAs are a good idea in terms of getting all the admin straight in advance, but it is something you can do yourselves online, saving several hundreds of £s if you did them through a solicitor. For more information follow this link:

https://www.gov.uk/power-of-attorney/overview

A more simple ordinary Power of Attorney whereby you (in your case) give each other the power to act on your behalf if you are unable to would probably suffice in the short term, but is usually done through a solicitor:

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/england/relationships_e/relationships_looking_after_people_e/managing_affairs_for_someone_else.htm

Whilst I can understand that a questionnaire such as this might prompt a potential testator to list all their assets that might need to be addressed in a Will, the greater detail of account numbers, sort codes and their balances seems far too much info for a standard will. And as you say, those details are going to change over time, and you can't update your will every time you open/close an account!

So I suspect like you that they may well be looking for new business!

TomsMom

My will was made three years ago and my solicitor required absolutely no information whatsoever about any savings or bank accounts or anything else to do with my financial situation.

It sounds as though you're very organised with your information and updating it. I think you're correct in your assumption that your solicitor might be fishing for further business.

Crabapple

Seems rather extreme to me. All they actually need to advise you is a reasonable idea of the amounts held so they can advise on any IHT issues, and whether they are joint or sole to say how they pass.

There is a requirement in the capacity test that a person understands the nature and extent of their assets, but giving each individual account number isn't ever needed for that.

I'd suggest you just put in a figure for the total amount in savings and leave it at that, if they ask further say you aren't prepared to give them all your invidual account numbers.

The LPA stuff is pretty standard, it's a good opportunity to cross-sell or at least bring the issues to a persons attention. By the sounds of it you already know the basics and that it is not much of an issue with joint accounts so long as only one person loses capacity.

theoretica

Might it be cheaper for you to sign LPAs at the same time as wills?

It would be very useful to your executors to have your account details easily accessible, but you will probably change them many times so better to tell your executor directly where you keep the list. Maybe the solicitor is angling to be appointed executor and keep hold of this information.

pollypenny

Our solicitor didn't ask for account details. Just as well, as we are always mi ing money for betters interest rates.

We also did mutual EPAs, as they then were, at the same time.

Savvy_Sue

Our solicitor said he would be negligent not to discuss LPAs at the same time as wills. But no, no requests for bank account details!

Newly_retired

My solicitor gave me information about LPAs and just left me to sort it.

Apart from checking where I stood in relation to the IHT threshold, he did not ask for any detailed information about my finances. He advised against naming any specific accounts in the will.
So I don't see why yours has any need to know your financial details, and personally, I would not be supplying them

sleepymans

Crabapple wrote: »

I'd suggest you just put in a figure for the total amount in savings and leave it at that, if they ask further say you aren't prepared to give them all your invidual account numbers.

The LPA stuff is pretty standard, it's a good opportunity to cross-sell or at least bring the issues to a persons attention. By the sounds of it you already know the basics and that it is not much of an issue with joint accounts so long as only one person loses capacity.

Thanks for your reply....We know that our joint assets aren't above IHT threshold, but yes I guess the solicitor is asking in case we have the wrong figure or something....


We figured that with everything already jointly held that if one of us ever became incapacitated, then it would be at that stage that the remaining spouse would be wise to set up an LPA for if he/she then lost capacity.


Is that not a sound enough strategy do you think?

sleepymans

theoretica wrote: »

Might it be cheaper for you to sign LPAs at the same time as wills?

It would be very useful to your executors to have your account details easily accessible, but you will probably change them many times so better to tell your executor directly where you keep the list. Maybe the solicitor is angling to be appointed executor and keep hold of this information.

Thanks for your reply.


The cost of LPA's quoted by the solicitor is twice that of the cost of making wills!! No discount applies for multiple business lol!


I think we would probably be able to fill out the forms online ourselves, if we wanted to, as suggested by "troubleinparadise"


We don't want the solicitor to be executor. We are going to be each other's executor (with a relative appointed if we died at the same time).