Trust Inheritance Will Writing Service

Black-Rose

Of course I had only made one post. I had asked a question and no one had replied. I do not work for trust inheritance at all. I just wanted to know if they were likely to disappear off with my money. Sorry for asking a question, it won't happen again. I just don't think there was any need for the 'one post wonder comment' when I had logged in several times to see if anyone had replied and they hadn't.

ashbytim

Gerald Malcom Barton has turned up again, this time in the guise of "Express Law" as I found out after an extensive Google search
My 80 year old widowed Mum got a call from someone who said they were from "Express Law" last week. They asked her if she was aware that the Government was encouraging older people living in larger properties than they needed to sell them so that families could then have them. OK, the Government IS asking such people to consider moving out of rented Council and Housing Association properties but NOT owner occupied properties such as my Mum has. They then offered to do all the legal work that she would need with such a move as well as "anything else" such as Power of Attorney which, thank goodness, she already has. How they got her number I don't know!
Now Mum might be 80 years old but she isn't in her dotage yet. She took down all the details and called me straight away. Hence I found out about the link to Gerald Barton. Well, I eventually found it but only after wading through all the bull that Express Law have managed to get on the first few pages of a Google search. Obviously I told Mum to tell them to, well, you can imagine.
Can anyone tell me what is being done to stop this man dead in his tracks? I get annoyed when I see this sort of thing on TV but I get REALLY ANGRY when they are trying to rip off my own Mum.

John_Pierpoint

Here comes another toothless watchdog?

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/52664207#Comment_52664207

PP1024

Black-Rose wrote: »

Of course I had only made one post. I had asked a question and no one had replied. I do not work for trust inheritance at all. I just wanted to know if they were likely to disappear off with my money. Sorry for asking a question, it won't happen again. I just don't think there was any need for the 'one post wonder comment' when I had logged in several times to see if anyone had replied and they hadn't.

Hi I did work for them and I would see if you can get your money back, read all small print you probably have not got what you thought you had

Jaws123

Even if I will be uncool and very un-moneysaving, we have gone with Trust Inheritance 4 years ago and we are still paying off, however, we are happy with the deal. We wanted to have a will in place for several years; we did buy a DIY pack from Tesco for £10 but couldn't really work it out; it was only after our first child came along that we urgently wanted the situation resolved. Now after our 3rd child we have changed the will twice and will probably change it again in the future. It was interesting if a bit shocking that they pointed out we would probably die together while the kids were still young and we seriously needed to think about someone who would take care of them. My brother has been winding up my mums and grandparents estates in Germany and he had a lot of work and sleepless nights with it. There was a court case against a family member which we won in the end. I would find it extremely hard when my partner died. I would appreciate the counselling and I am not very good at getting professional help. If death would be later in life, I see it as a kind of gift to my children who I wouldn't have to appoint to sort out everything afterwards as it can cause many headaches. This might not be to everyone's taste as some might rather prefer money but that's been our decision.

The only worry I have is if the company does go bust, we would lose all the money. When we signed up in 2009 we "only" paid £1800. We took out a loan through Trust Inheritance with Barclays over 8 years. We now need to see if we can overpay as the APR is 11% and it means that we would pay 31% on top over that period. There is an early settlement fee. We should have arranged our own loan and not gone with the suggested provider.

davidgi

I deeply regret using Trust Inheritance. They cold canvassed my Wife and I outside of B&Q with promise of a will for £65. It also came at a time when I was being treated for Depression so my judgement was not at its best. Cutting the story short the Salesman walked away from our home with a cheque for £1750. Money that we can ill afford and for what!?

The very basic will TI provided that we could have easily written ourselves with a kit from WH Smith was peppered with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes. What a disaster!

I written to them twice now and only today recieved an auto reply telling me they'll give my letter some attention when they get around to it.

My advice? Steer well clear !!!! Do it yourself or get a real soliitor to do it for you.

davidgi

Thankyou to the kind members who thanked me for my post.

I'm not letting go of this, I'm really angry! If I hadn't been ill when the salesman came there is no way I would have parted with money, but it's done now.

I found the attached interesting link to this (I'm hoping it's ok to post links here?)

OK I can't post my link. It was a BBC News article featuring Lorely Burt, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for business, enterprise and regulatory reform . The Headline was "Dishonesty warning over wills" and the first paragraph reads, "The government should consider regulating the will-writing industry which is a "hunting ground for the incompetent", says an MP." you can google it up for yourselves.

Also I live in Weston-super-Mare (uk) in the same town that TI have their headquarters. I have therefore written a letter of complaint to my local MP John Penrose.

I'll let you all know any response I may get.

jimmo

davidgi wrote: »

I can't post my link. It was a BBC News article featuring Lorely Burt, Liberal Democrat spokeswoman for business, enterprise and regulatory reform . The Headline was "Dishonesty warning over wills" and the first paragraph reads, "The government should consider regulating the will-writing industry which is a "hunting ground for the incompetent", says an MP." you can google it up for yourselves.

Blimey, that was in 2008. Who said a week is a long time in politics?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7253417.stm

John_Pierpoint

The biggest problem is still that roughly half the population die intestate, that is with no will.
Of the half that do make a will, there must be a significant proportion that leave a faulty will. It might have been perfect when written 10 or 20 years earlier, but in the meantime changes in the circumstances of the deceased, the legislation, death of beneficiaries and executor and especially the appearance of the un-named beneficiary at the front of the queue - HMRC - makes a nonsense of the will.
This can be corrected with a deed of variation BUT the beneficiaries have to agree if their share is affected.

Do review your will regularly.

prettyfires

Monkeyspank says ;
Clients can be assured that, by dealing with an IPW member, they will receive a service that is professional, ethical and competent.”

In my sad, hard earned experience this is untrue.
Will writers, unlike solicitors, have no standard to ensure they see a client on their own, leaving a vulnerable client open to the continued abuse of a spouse, helped by a will writer. I would like to see this change. Like with solicitors, a client should be seen alone.
An IPW member wrote a will that did not fulfill my mum's wishes and was written in such complicated 'legalese' I do not think she fully understood and was never able to question the will writer without her emotionally abuse husband being present ( medical records support this).
My mum wrote another later will, but the executor and the lawyer hurried the previous will through while I was in hospital. There is no legal duty for Probate to check if a will being presented is indeed a last will, nor is there any time limit for challenging if it is a last will with out incurring huge expense in a civil court.
The legal advisor I went to turned out to be the legal advisor of the will writer as well, which although is a 'conflict of interest', the law society will not do anything about. I didn't get the best legal advice.
The will and the evacuation documents written by the will writer, an IPW member, were examined by an independent advocate and were found to be lacking. But again, to access the compensation fund the IPW members are so 'proud' to put forward as protection, costs thousands of pounds to get to a situation where a civil court will look at it.
I have asked for their help and instead of ethical behaviour , their actions are more in keeping with denying all liability and not accepting that a member was not up to the job professionally.
Even although you go to an IPW member do not be lulled into a sense of false security - the laws need to change more, at the moment there are too many loopholes and a lack of protection for consumers.
Be warned, take care...