Dreadful will service

Amanda_Flannery

Good afternoon, I am looking for any information to aid my decision making on whether to accept the current refund offered to me from a solicitors for a will service.

Around January 2025, my husband had a phone call from our solicitors letting us know that when we married, our wills we got beforehand were now void (we married 2018). I get the feeling they were looking for work.

We had just lost both our Nan’s so it was a bit of a bad time to have to face dealing with this kind of talk but we know how important it is to get things done right as you never know when your time is up.

We had a two hour chat with a solicitor on teams in February where everything was recorded. We included a trust fund so we spent £1k altogether for the both of us. We trusted that they listened and that this was going to be a good service. We rang up within 14 days a bit unsure on some things and if we made the right choice… we were told it was too late to cancel and get a refund as they were already being worked.

However, it comes to April and there’s no communication. One of my beneficiaries passed away in this time so we had to ring up and they said they would have to redo work. I think we called in May for a chaser and were told the drafts were sent via post, we said we had not received, so confirmed our address and were told they would be sent again.

We then get to the end of June, where we get a letter informing us if we don’t reply within 14 days they will cease services. We rang up and were told on two occasions our drafts should have been sent via post but we never received. We confirmed address again and it was slightly incorrect.

A few weeks go by and we don’t receive anything via post still. We got sent a link to an online portal where we could view the will draft and trust fund draft for both of us. There were about 15 errors in one; where the address did not match, the relationships did not change so apparently his siblings were listed as in laws like on mine and my mum was also his mum! They got the gender wrong on one, merged our names and created a brand new person, it really was not what I was expecting. I understand it’s a draft will but I didn’t expect so many mistakes when there’s a two hour video call they could have watched to go over names etc. 

I wrote in a complaint and the solicitor called back a week later. I felt like I couldn’t cancel at this point as it was past the 14 day period of course. It took nearly 2 weeks to get the re edits done and they were still wrong…. Not as bad but still yet again shows a rushed job and lack of care.

we sent in a formal complaint to the company and have been offered 20% refund for lack of communication and £100 for distress and inconvenience caused. We were told they were really busy and apologised that we were not informed of the backlog basically. 

I’m really frustrated as they have some of the information incorrect in the reply, we only saw our draft in July via online portal when we made the purchase in February, we never had the chance to cancel. We cannot get a full refund because they have worked on our wills, which I find hard to accept because the two drafts we have received have been so awful I don’t even feel like they have spent an hour on either will. 

What I would like to know is, if I took it further to ombudsman, would I be more likely to get more of a refund or is it best to begrudgingly accept the loss of £700?
I have seen their trust pilot reviews and in this past year there’s a lot of complaints around the same time frame we made our purchase. I have lost any faith I had in them to even deal with the situation well if one of us passed so I’d ideally want a refund so we can go elsewhere and finally get a will.

thank you 

poppystar

Are these real solicitors or just Will writers? If they are real solicitors they will be regulated by their professional body and you can contact them if you are not happy with what they have offered. If they are Will writers then you have learnt a very expensive lessen sadly. 

If that is the case then go to a solicitors and get new wills written which should be nowhere near the price you seem to have paid. Why did you need a trust? Do you know what it does? Unless you have a very complicated situation, out of the ordinary, you can probably get the wills done for maybe  £200-300. 

Effectively at the moment you have a Will that would be a nightmare for executors should the worst happen so act as soon as possible. Have these people also put themselves down as executors? If so even more reason to act quickly. 

Amanda_Flannery

poppystar said:

Are these real solicitors or just Will writers? If they are real solicitors they will be regulated by their professional body and you can contact them if you are not happy with what they have offered. If they are Will writers then you have learnt a very expensive lessen sadly. 

If that is the case then go to a solicitors and get new wills written which should be nowhere near the price you seem to have paid. Why did you need a trust? Do you know what it does? Unless you have a very complicated situation, out of the ordinary, you can probably get the wills done for maybe  £200-300. 

Effectively at the moment you have a Will that would be a nightmare for executors should the worst happen so act as soon as possible. Have these people also put themselves down as executors? If so even more reason to act quickly. 

Hello, thank you for taking the time to read and leave a reply!

Yes they are a real solicitor. We had to get wills when we got our mortgage about 11 years ago. They were very good. It seems they have been taken over by a company who has about three companies underneath them. We complained to the company who owns them and that’s the best they have to offer, they said if we want to challenge further we have to go to ombudsman. 

We wanted to get a trust in place because in the event we both die, naturally where the money would go we were not happy with it. Both our families dynamics are a bit complicated and I’ve seen money bring out the worst in people. The trust fund sounded like a good idea at the time in which I won’t go into but now I’m sort of past the point of caring I just want a basic will that protects each other more so than anyone else now. The company have put themselves down as assisting when the worst happens in which seeing reviews left by others, they drag their feet for years.

Emmia

poppystar said:

Are these real solicitors or just Will writers? If they are real solicitors they will be regulated by their professional body and you can contact them if you are not happy with what they have offered. If they are Will writers then you have learnt a very expensive lessen sadly. 

If that is the case then go to a solicitors and get new wills written which should be nowhere near the price you seem to have paid. Why did you need a trust? Do you know what it does? Unless you have a very complicated situation, out of the ordinary, you can probably get the wills done for maybe  £200-300. 

Effectively at the moment you have a Will that would be a nightmare for executors should the worst happen so act as soon as possible. Have these people also put themselves down as executors? If so even more reason to act quickly. 

The new will isn't signed though, it's a draft document - so currently the intestacy rules would apply, so surviving spouse gets the assets,  and if you both die together then the intestacy rules apply to the younger spouse (who is deemed to have died last)

I'd just get a new straightforward wills made, forget the trust element which adds cost and complexity... Using a different firm of solicitors.

RAS

Unless your wills create an Immediate Post Death Interest trust when the first spouse dies, I'd be very careful about creating trusts. Do the trusts allow the survivor to live in your property until death or they need care?

I'd also sure that these solicitors have nothing to do with storing or proving your wills. Insist on collecting the signed originals, I'd suggest getting another solicitor to certify a copy of each, then store with HMCTS for £30. 

Marcon

Amanda_Flannery said:

Good afternoon, I am looking for any information to aid my decision making on whether to accept the current refund offered to me from a solicitors for a will service.

Around January 2025, my husband had a phone call from our solicitors letting us know that when we married, our wills we got beforehand were now void (we married 2018). I get the feeling they were looking for work.

We had just lost both our Nan’s so it was a bit of a bad time to have to face dealing with this kind of talk but we know how important it is to get things done right as you never know when your time is up.

We had a two hour chat with a solicitor on teams in February where everything was recorded. We included a trust fund so we spent £1k altogether for the both of us. We trusted that they listened and that this was going to be a good service. We rang up within 14 days a bit unsure on some things and if we made the right choice… we were told it was too late to cancel and get a refund as they were already being worked.

However, it comes to April and there’s no communication. One of my beneficiaries passed away in this time so we had to ring up and they said they would have to redo work. I think we called in May for a chaser and were told the drafts were sent via post, we said we had not received, so confirmed our address and were told they would be sent again.

We then get to the end of June, where we get a letter informing us if we don’t reply within 14 days they will cease services. We rang up and were told on two occasions our drafts should have been sent via post but we never received. We confirmed address again and it was slightly incorrect.

A few weeks go by and we don’t receive anything via post still. We got sent a link to an online portal where we could view the will draft and trust fund draft for both of us. There were about 15 errors in one; where the address did not match, the relationships did not change so apparently his siblings were listed as in laws like on mine and my mum was also his mum! They got the gender wrong on one, merged our names and created a brand new person, it really was not what I was expecting. I understand it’s a draft will but I didn’t expect so many mistakes when there’s a two hour video call they could have watched to go over names etc. 

I wrote in a complaint and the solicitor called back a week later. I felt like I couldn’t cancel at this point as it was past the 14 day period of course. It took nearly 2 weeks to get the re edits done and they were still wrong…. Not as bad but still yet again shows a rushed job and lack of care.

we sent in a formal complaint to the company and have been offered 20% refund for lack of communication and £100 for distress and inconvenience caused. We were told they were really busy and apologised that we were not informed of the backlog basically. 

I’m really frustrated as they have some of the information incorrect in the reply, we only saw our draft in July via online portal when we made the purchase in February, we never had the chance to cancel. We cannot get a full refund because they have worked on our wills, which I find hard to accept because the two drafts we have received have been so awful I don’t even feel like they have spent an hour on either will. 

What I would like to know is, if I took it further to ombudsman, would I be more likely to get more of a refund or is it best to begrudgingly accept the loss of £700?
I have seen their trust pilot reviews and in this past year there’s a lot of complaints around the same time frame we made our purchase. I have lost any faith I had in them to even deal with the situation well if one of us passed so I’d ideally want a refund so we can go elsewhere and finally get a will.

thank you 

Your last sentence says it all.

If things have happened as you describe, and you've been through the formal complaints procedure with this firm, I'd let them know you are now heading for the Legal Ombudsman: https://www.legalombudsman.org.uk/how-to-complain/ and will be asking for a full refund because given the experience you have had, you have no faith in the firm or their documentation.

Spendless

Not sure why youd need a trust in case you both went. You just do a 'disaster clause' saying where you'd want your money to go. We werent happy with what intestecy would do if we all went at once, our will names who we would want to inherit if that happens.