Trust Inheritance Will Writing Service

sloughflint

expertlinguist wrote: »

As if the Beeb was totally unbiassed/factual/non-sensetionalistic.:rotfl:

So after an absence from the thread of in excess of two years, you reappear and post this. Presumably still a 'consultant' for Trust Inheritance then?

Shame the clip is no longer available to view. From memory, the couple, with a very modest estate value, had paid for the now familiar 'package' costing several thousands of pounds. It was when the gentleman died that it became clear to the survivor that they had completely wasted their money with no comeback.

If the BBC is too biased/sensationalistic for you, here are a few other references about your employer for you to digest :

1. Thread on TI's cold calling methods with post by [STRIKE]TI employee[/STRIKE] satisfied customer justifying cold calling plus response from forum author:

Leanne Marriott Says:
August 11th, 2010 at 11:59 am

Trust Inheritance are not, i repeat not a scam! I understand you all thinking the predictive dialler is an unusual way to generate interest but we are after all in the relms of modern technology and it must be far more productive for the company to use this bit of kit rather than relying on a poor guy / girl picking the phone up and dialling numbers all day long. My parents and i have had our Wills drafted by Trust Inheritance and found them to be nothing but professional from the outset. We have both chosen to opt for a service they offer and fully understand exactly ‘what we get’ for our money.
Barbara Morris’ comment added in September last year, was incorrect in her statment of her parents Wills costing £2500, a mirror will with Trust Inheritance doesn’t cost anywhere near this much! I think their current price is just £79.
I thought it only fair to add a note on behalf of the company as i guess you wouldn’t know until you had tried them. Leanne

Leanne, I’m not suggesting that you are, in fact, a salesperson, or an employee of Trust Inheritance, but usually defensive comments like this come from a company source, so it’s good to see a happy customer coming onto this thread for a change. I reiterate, I have no issues with Trust Inheritance selling wills for £2500 or £79, for that matter - what they charge for their services is between their salespeople and their potential clients. The point of my original post is that they use predictive diallers, using the same numbers, over and over again. They seem to be targeting older people and most older people have no idea what a predictive dialer is. All they know is that they are receiving calls, day after day, from someone that hangs up as soon as they answer the phone. If you think that this is okay, Leanne, why not send us your telephone number so we can all call you and hang up every time you answer, day after day, for weeks on end? As for your comment saying that Barbara’s will didn’t cost £2500, that’s somewhat presumptious of you, isn’t it? I have received dozens of other comments quoting figures of that size and more, but I haven’t published them, as the language in the comments and the downright hatred towards Trust Inheritance, led to me ommitting them from the post. Thanks for taking the time to comment and have a fine day. BM

All rather ironic in view of TI's own website:

Cold calling potential customers and pressuring those who admit to not having yet made their last Will and testament into doing so is not the way Will writing service providers should be operating, and such practices have a detrimental effect on the service as a whole.

2. Another 'Consultant' Arum Maculatum posing as a happy customer here.
There's even a link to this thread in the last post of the thread copied here. Your 2008 input has not been missed:

Tuesday 11th May 2010
Hopefully Arum Maculatum will come back (especially after he took the trouble to register and to write his lengthy post in defence of TIL)Our adviser arrived following a cold-call wherein my wife agreed to the appointment as it was something we had talked about doing recently by co-incidence. TIL had been given our details by a conveyancing solicitor that had handled a re-mortgage for us a couple of years ago (not happy with them for passing my details but that's another matter).

Now, the alarm bells were ringing in my head long before the adviser arrived (who makes a two hour round trip, talks for two hours from 8-10pm, all for £59? There was obviously going to be a big sales pitch somewhere. Their PEP product certainly did not have anywhere near the value that they claim; think about it, from the £2500 fee the salesman, sorry "adviser", gets paid, the referrer gets paid, and there is profit for the company. I would be surprised if there was more than half left to pay for all the legal work that is promised in the future.

I would like to hear from Arum if I have missed something in my arithmetic or logic, but generally, if it sounds too good to be true........

Looking at the Professional Association of Legal Services (PALS) which was mentioned earlier; their website is owned by, and set-up by TIL which they do declare. As will writing is unregulated anyone can set up their own trade association to add a veneer of credibility.

I am not sure if Arum is aware of this, but as for the longevity and stability issue....

From the TIL website: "Founded in 1990 Trust Inheritance*.......*Previously known as Personal Estate Planning.."

Alternative version: Personal Estate Planning is currently in liquidation (debt exceed assets by some margin) with accounts overdue. It is the same story for 4 other PEP group companies. The MD and the major shareholder of TIL even part-owns a window cleaning company which is going down the toilet!

For further reading though, I am going to have a look at this
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/805099
And then get back to cars.......

Edit:
EL: I have read your pm. You should post on the thread instead.

minxymagic

Being a Wills and Probate Solicitor, I am absolutely horrified that anyone would touch these Will writers (often with dubious qualifications and no insurance). I have too often been called in to sort out the mess they cause and it costs so much more than it would have done if they had called a solicitor to draft a Will in the first place. I recall one will writer could not even provide with the notes he had taken at the meeting - an absolute disgrace in the circumstances. I cannot believe some people do not want to pay a solicitor to do their Will (on average £100-300 plus VAT) yet they will happily pay a Will writer however many thousands to do their Will and administer their estates after their deaths. The first to die of many married couples do not even need my services as everything is in joint names and so the Will writers are seriously raking it in having got funds in prior to death! My experience tells me that many of these Will writing companies will not even exist when the person who had paid up front dies and instead, the company dissolved and another company appearing in its place not even acknowledging that the deceased had paid upfront! If you are looking to save money when someone has died, take my advice and simply ask a solicitor to get you off on the right track. If nothing else, ask him or her to assist you in obtaining the Grant of Representation and then do the rest yourself. Remember, a solicitor will usually only charge for the work they do and no more and if it all goes wrong, at least you have their insurance or the Solicitors Regulation Authority to fall back on.

jinnyanne

My husband and I have our wills with trust inheritance but I have been having second thoughts of late! We had not long lost our dad and his house up to then had not been sold. We didn't have wills at the time but dads death spured us on. We also had had calls from Trust Inheritance, it was after one of these calls that we arranged for a representative to call and speak to us!!....
We have also made them our executers of our wills and here is the problem ..... We didn't have the cash to pay for their services and we signed a direct debit agreement. The payments are £24.55 per month for 60 months!! But just a few months ago I was re-reading our agreement. It reads..... I agree tp pay by instalments of £24.55 over a period of 132 months. Which means we continue paying trust inheritance after our payments to their lender... which was Clydesdale but is now barclays!! We are now both in our 71st year and like everyone else, counting our pennies. Could someone advise please. Jinnyanne

Mojisola

jinnyanne wrote: »

But just a few months ago I was re-reading our agreement. It reads..... I agree tp pay by instalments of £24.55 over a period of 132 months.

£24.55 x 132 = £3240.60!

What price did they quote you for the wills?

SeniorSam

Jinnyanne,

I am so sorry to hear of this type of business as I am of a similar age and have a reasonable knowledge of inheritance tax mitigation and Will writing.

It seems that this company regularly pop up their heads in this Thread, which in my humble opinion should be closed down in favour of a new Inheritance Tax Thread that doesn't keep pushing this particular company. Not to say the company does not offer a service that is taken up by many, but the practice you have explained here seems to be beyond good taste and good business practice.

If all companies were to press elderly clients into taking up loan agreements to pay for a service which is not essential, then they would soon be out of business, or possibly should be.

As it has been stated many times, the ones who are to inherit your estate can be the Executors and at the time they need to take action, they are at liberty to do the job themselves, which is not so difficult, but can if they wish, ask a solicitor to quote a price to act for them.

Where a company is recommending a particular solicitor for such duties, is that company receiving any financial reward for doing so ? Did you ask the question? It would be interesting to know the answer.

It seems from many questions concerning Will writing companies and their charges stem from additional charges that clients are asked to pay, which would seem to suggest that the companies are soliciting business with the intent of not just completing Wills, but obtaining additional business and pressing people into loan agreements for their own ends.

Making the Will writing company Executors of your estate may be just as bad as asking Banks to be Executors and may cost your beneficiaries high charges and greater delay that if they were to act on their own behalf.

In my opinion to ask people over 70 years of age to take our loan agreements for the next 11 years is disgraceful and you may be able to obtain some help by speaking with Trading Standards about this.

Best of luck, but please let us know what result you achieve.

I do hope that Martin Lewis sees this matter and considers the benefit, or otherwise of having such companies touting for business in this way

Sam

jinnyanne

Thank you Sam for your advice. I feel so stupid having to say this but I can't remember a total price being quoted. The only total shown on our documents is the total payable to Berklay's...£24.55 over 60months. We have another 9months to pay on this!! A second document headed trust inheritence quotes.... 24.55 over 132 months. I can only presume that payments will then be taken over by trust inheritance. But I will get what advice I can ASOP, before the end of this year! I will contact trust in inheritance as soon as tomorrow.... I will be in touch with you and others to let you know the outcome. I just hope it isn't going to get messy.
Thank you once again for youir help .... Jean.

John_Pierpoint

The second hand car trade seems to be the business model.
The second hand car salesman can make much more money from selling the finance agreement than from selling the car.

SeniorSam

Well said John,

Such comments have been made before about this Thread. I reported this Thread to Money Making Expert yesterday but see that there have been many comments on the sharp practice that this Will Writing Company seems to operate. However, when other complaints are made, there is often the 'standard reply' that the views of MME are not necessarily those of the companies posting for business. A real cop-out in my opinion, but perhaps it's because this Thread has had 137 replies and has been viewed 35408 times and this may make money for MME, I'm not sure?

However, I do hope we see an end to these people who con others into paying more than they can afford, but that will be in part, up to the action that the Martin Lewis team take, if they care about this sort of thing!

SeniorSam

Hi Jean,

In the first instance you should write a letter and head it FORMAL COMPLAINT and state your case that you were pressured into this by their salesman and were not informed about the payments going on for 11 years. |Tell them that you intend taking this matter to Trading Standards and contact your local Council to get the telephone number for Trading Standards. Call them and explain what has happened and they should either take action or let you know what you should do.

I am not sure if Will Writing comes under The FSA ( Financial Services Authority) , but no harm in calling them also to enquire if they can help.

I have e-mailed this Money Saving Expert site asking them to look into this, but there have been several similar cases where this site has not bothered to take any action against the company by simply banning their free advertising. The Will Writing company have had this Thread on the go since March 2008 and no doubt pressured a lot of people like yourself into agreements that are not necessary. I do hope that you can sort this out, but one thing you could do is to stop your Direct Debit for the payments to the company on the basis that the arrangements were obtained without your full knowledge of the details. Ask Trading Standards for their opinion.

Good Luck

Sam

SeniorSam

Hi Jean,

don't know if you have heard anything from Money Saving Experts, or indeed if you will do so, but I have heard nothing further from them after reporting the terrible experience you have had from the Will writing company that touts for business on this site.

Perhaps the site managers, or Martin Lewis simply do not want to know, or do not care, but I would have thought that some comment would have been made to you or on the site about this deplorable type of business. Perhaps we will hear something soon??? I do wonder, as the income to the site from this company's use is perhaps swaying them to take no action? Over to you MSE ! I would like to know what you are doing because this site deserves to be maintained, but with a firm hand on the people who use it and showing concern where necessary.

Sam.