Certainty National Will Registry

MysteryMan

I went to see a solicitor yesterday about making wills for my wife and I and she was pushing quite hard for the wills, once complete, to be registered with the "Certainty National Will Registry".

I was told that without this then Probate would insist on the executor proving that they had contacted all solicitors within a 10-mile radius to establish that there wasn't a more recent will in existence.

Has anybody come across this requirement and is it really true?

Do people regard registration with this body to be essential?

Thanks

Malthusian

MysteryMan wrote: »

I was told that without this then Probate would insist on the executor proving that they had contacted all solicitors within a 10-mile radius to establish that there wasn't a more recent will in existence.

Total rubbish.

There is absolutely nothing to stop you storing a Will with Certainty and then creating a more recent legally valid Will without updating Certainty, although it would be a silly thing to do. It is also common for people to use solicitors more than 10 miles away. Or move after making their Wills. Absolute nonsense.

I really can't see the point, unless you are happy to pay £30 for extra peace of mind. It's important that your executors know where the Will is, and that if your executors pre-deceased you or couldn't act, whoever was searching through your paperwork would find either the Will or a note of where it had been stored. If you've done that then registering it with Certainty seems superfluous. If you haven't it might not be of much use.

All Certainty does is record where your Will is, so if you moved the Will somewhere else (e.g. in a house move) and didn't update Certainty, it would be of no help to your executors.

Dox

She's talking gibberish about the executor having to prove they've contacted all solicitors within a 10 mile radius - radius of what? The will writer's address at the time they made the will? What if they move?

I'd make a formal complaint to the firm of solicitors concerned.

Tom99

If you want to put your will somewhere outside the house for safekeeping you can lodge the actual original will with the Probate Service for £20.
There would be a far more obvious place for your relatives to look than "Certainty National Will Registry".
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-deposit-a-will-with-the-probate-service-a-guide-for-people-who-want-to-deposit-a-will-for-safekeeping-pa7

Keep_pedalling

Tom99 wrote: »

If you want to put your will somewhere outside the house for safekeeping you can lodge the actual original will with the Probate Service for £20.
There would be a far more obvious place for your relatives to look than "Certainty National Will Registry".
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/how-to-deposit-a-will-with-the-probate-service-a-guide-for-people-who-want-to-deposit-a-will-for-safekeeping-pa7

Certainty is not a will storage service it is purely a central registration service, that for example can be used by an administrator of what is believed to be an intestate estate to check if there is a will and where it is located.

The registration is bigger than you might imaging because Certainty offer solicitors the option of placing their archived wills on the register free of charge. As an administrator I would use the service if I was dealing with the estate of someone who died supposedly intestate or I could only find a very old will that might not be the latest.

I would not bother registering my own as my executors know exactly where my will is stored, what the solicitor has said in this case is BS.

MysteryMan

Thanks to all who have replied and reinforced my initial view that this is nonsense!

AnotherJoe

I would find another solicitor. It's nonsensical on so many different levels. and if you can don't have a solicitor named as executor in the Will anyway.
If you make children or relatives executors they can always pass on to a solicitor later, much harder to do the other way round, and solicitorS will charge an arm and two legs and take twice as long

Savvy_Sue

Is this actually a solicitor, or a will writer?