Do you think I have a claim?

learning110

Hello and thank you in advance for looking at this.

A few months ago, I contracted with a company to draw up a will and various trusts, we conducted a phone interview lasting around 40 minutes and was provided with advice. On the back of this, It was agreed to use their services, and I paid around £3000 via credit card. A few weeks later, a sizeable amount of documents were received, and I must confess around 40% I do not understand. When reviewing the forms, I found one of my properties was not listed at all. I informed the company and asked them to correct and review the documents to make sure everything else was in order, they apologized, and a couple of weeks later, some revised papers were received. Again I sat down to review them, and this time found that two beneficiaries to the will were missing altogether. 

At this point lost all faith in this company; with my limited understanding, I had found two massive errors in the documents and am concerned what others are there that I simply would not know. I contacted the company and offered two solutions:
1. I return all the Correspondance and receive a full refund
or
2. I was refunded the sum of £1200 (the cost it would be to get a 3rd party to review and advise if they were suitable).

The company outright rejected both options stating that the 14-day cooling-off period had expired. It was explained if we couldn't come to an agreement then I would seek redress via my credit card company, their response was if that were to occur they would initiate usual debt recovery procedures and sue me. We got no further forward, so I put a claim into my credit card provider - this was rejected in short order on the grounds that the 14-day cooling-off period I had agreed to in the merchant's terms and conditions had expired. I sent a letter before action to both my credit card provider and the will writers, and this time the credit card company completed a more thorough investigation (the will writers did not respond). I assume that during this, the two communicated a third set of documents was received from the will writers with the two missing beneficiaries added. A few days later another letter from the credit card provider was received stating my Section 75 claim was unsuccessful as the vendor had rectified all identified issues. Therefore there was no claim to be had.

So my current situation is I do have the corrected documents in my possession but have no faith that they rate error-free, with something as important as a will, and the amount of money spent is crucial. In an ideal world, I would like a full refund but would be content to be reasonable and just have the documents checked by a 3rd party for errors. 

Do I have a claim here? I'm reluctant to spend another £1200 to a 3rd party to check the documents over to establish clear loss. What would your advice be?

Aylesbury_Duck

Without having the documents checked you can't demonstrate their mistakes or any clear loss, so I don't see an alternative to getting them checked and then taking the original company to court for the cost of doing so plus whatever that independent inspector thinks it would cost to correct the documents.

DoaM

Assuming this is a consumer contract ... would the OP be able to exercise their Final Right To Reject? After all the company has had two opportunities to make the goods conform to contract ... OP could have said No after the first attempt failed.

davidmcn

I can't see that you have any remedy merely because you have a fear that there is something wrong with the documents. After all, somebody might have such a fear even if nothing had obviously gone wrong - should they be entitled to a refund too? Or should the onus be on them to demonstrate that there is actually something faulty?

What sort of "company" was this? I'm guessing not a firm of solicitors, or other regulated professionals?

learning110

Hello, Thank you for all your replies. The company was Legacy Wills as far as I can see there is no regulatory body, the FCA only covers credit if taken out with them and in this case it was not. 

I understand your point entirely regarding it being a "fear". The fear, however, is two massive big errors have already been made, a £180,000 property and two individuals who would not have inherited anything had it not have been spotted. 

I suspect there is nothing that can be done without getting it checked over and a report. I just wanted to ensure there wasn't a claim based on the service not being completed with due care and attention. If I'm not mistaken the right to reject only applies to goods and not services? 

eddddy

learning110 said:

I suspect there is nothing that can be done without getting it checked over and a report. I just wanted to ensure there wasn't a claim based on the service not being completed with due care and attention. If I'm not mistaken the right to reject only applies to goods and not services? 

The Consumer Rights Act 2015 adds an implied term to a service contract that it will be "carried out with reasonable care and skill".

The challenge is to show that the service wasn't "carried out with reasonable care and skill". 

stragglebod

You'll need to do what you should have done in the first place - see a lawyer.

DoaM

stragglebod said:

You'll need to do what you should have done in the first place - see a lawyer.

Indeed. £3k seems a lot to spend on something like this without having a face-face (even virtually via Skype or similar) with a local solicitor.

steampowered

The "garbage-in, garbage-out" rule applies to services such as will writing and setting up trusts.  Instructing a professional - even a professional like a solicitor - still requires input and engagement from you.

While it isn't great that factual mistakes were made, ultimately it is up to you to check things like beneficiary details and details of assets. A third party cannot do this for you. Even if you go to a third party you'll still have to explain to the third party what you are trying to achieve, and the third party will still be relying on you to check details such as what properties/assets are involved.

While it isn't great that factual mistakes were made (assuming that you did give them the necessary details in the first place), it sounds like you are best off reading and understanding the documents that you have. If you don't understand anything, you should ask them to clarify/explain.  

Manxman_in_exile

DoaM said:

stragglebod said:

You'll need to do what you should have done in the first place - see a lawyer.

Indeed. £3k seems a lot to spend on something like this without having a face-face (even virtually via Skype or similar) with a local solicitor.

That does seem like a really large fee - especially as the OP has only mentioned a property worth £180k.  I would have thought about £500 would cover almost any scenario - £1000 absolute tops.

What also worries me is the OP mentions "various trusts".  If this is the case and the complexity is such that a fee of £3k is justified, I certainly wouldn't want to leave it in the hands of a will writing company!

OP - the only way you will satisfy yourself over this and get to sleep at night is to go and pay for a solicitor* to review the will and trusts.  Either they'll say "That's perfectly fine" or they'll say "I've never seen such badly drafted documents".  In the first case you'll have spent some more money but will sleep peacefully.  In the second case, you'll have ammo with which to sue the original will writers.

Is the will writing company charging you any extras - eg document storage; are they trustees/executors?

*Always use solicitors - never will writing companies.

jaybeetoo

Never pay in advance!