Trust Inheritance Will Writing Service

sloughflint

Interesting post by an unhappy ex-employee of the owner of First Wills

amiga wrote: »

I know its an old post but anyone reading this all I can say is NO NO NO!
I used to work for this guy back when he owned Britannic house in Torquay. The company ended up in the local paper (herald express) with staff being owed alot of money in wages and customers without wills or trusts and everyone out pocket due to this man, It even made the papers and after him running off from countless court summons in Torquay he started up firstwills.co.uk in Leicestershire cos he had an arrest warrent out for him in torquay and also was fined in March by Dudley magistrates court when he was arresed in Leicestershire http://www.dudley.gov.uk/welcome/news-in-dudley/march-2008/man-fined-for-false-claims. So my advice is any will company owned by Bryan Pharo is best left alone cos I know 100% you will get ripped off. And the way he makes his wills is by template software for PC that anyone can buy in a shop. So save yourself money and buy that insted of being ripped off or go to your solicitor, And another thing he offers is property trusts at about £500 or more, but what alot of people dont know is that to do that all you need to do is go to the land registry office and fill out an X81 form and it will cost you nothing. Hope I have helped at least somone from falling in the Bryan Pharo's trap.

taken from this thread:
First Wills-thread
See posts 4, 7,13 and 16
First Wills - article

The director of a will writing business has been fined after he admitted he falsely claimed to be a member of the Halesowen-based Institute of Professional Willwriters (IPW).

Bryan Pharo, who currently trades as Firstwills.co.uk, was a director of Britannic House Limited, a business engaged in providing will writing services, based in Torquay.

Both its website and company paperwork made reference to Pharo and the company being members of the Institute of Professional Willwriters.

But these false claims came to light when the IPW received complaints about the services being offered by Britannic House Limited. Despite being contacted by Paul Sharpe, the chairman of IPW and trading standards officers, Pharo ignored advice and continued to advertise both his personal and corporate membership.

sloughflint

Will Writing Services LTD thread

missinthy wrote: »

However, WSL also promoted a Lifetime Service which I unwittingly signed up to based on their "advice" without giving it as much thought as I should have (the will writing advisor person was extremely good). The Lifetime Service does three things -

1) WSL store the will in their super safe vaults that have all the bells and whistles you can think off,
2) they have a probate service whereby the executors of a will will have legal advice from a WSL expert legal advisor who will guide the executor through the probate service, and
3) the lifetime service allows the purchaser (me) to change their will or get a new one for free an unlimited number of times for the rest of their life.

I would just like opinions on whether that £850 is worthwhile or good value for money for the service they provide. WSL-Ltd are part of the Society of Will Writers and apparently this lifetime service is guaranteed by that Society (not sure how legitimate they are) so if they fail then its no loss to me as my service would still exist.

The storage facility is a desired option for me since as mentioned I have a seperated husband who has effectively been written out of any inheritence (although he sometimes resides at my address - bit of a strange seperation I know, but keeping it safe is slightly important), and I'm not sure whether the probate service is that important as although I have only a basic understanding of the difficulties of probate my executors and sole inheritors are my children, so surely it shouldn't be that difficult on the face of it - though the way these guys made it sound it could cost an arm and a leg in legal fees.

WSL have already taken a month's payment (the £850 is spread over 10 direct debit payments) even though they havent issued the final copy of the will yet, so if this Lifetime Service is a gimmic then I could still cancel without taking too massive a hit in terms of writing off amouts lost.

Any advice would be very much appreciated,

PS their website looks a bit poor:

http://www.wsl-ltd.co.uk/

sloughflint

National/Nationwide Legal Services - thread

Article
of which a few snippets:

High Court orders liquidation of "scandalously run" businesses that misled agents

Two companies engaged in the provision of legal documents to members of the public in England & Wales have been put into compulsory liquidation after the High Court in London found they had been "scandalously run".

Following action by the Companies Investigation Branch (CIB) of the Insolvency Service, Nationwide Legal Services Ltd and NLS Sheffield Ltd, which recruited and trained agents to draw up documents such as wills, have been wound up.

Nationwide Legal Services Ltd advertised extensively on national radio and television in order to recruit agents who paid a licence fee of £6,950 to run their own businesses. NLS Sheffield Ltd provided legal training to the agents, who were then able to take instructions from members of the public for the drawing up of legal documents. NLS Sheffield Ltd also drew up legal documents on behalf of agents.
NLS Sheffield Ltd produced legal documents without supervision from qualified solicitors, creating a risk of negligence claims. In addition, there was serious doubt about the adequacy and validity of the company's public indemnity insurance.

This was a new idea. Agents as well as the general public parting with a lot of money.

monkey_spank

This is a real rogues gallery of unscrupulous willwriting firms, and unfortunately it's just the tip of the iceberg.

These firms all seem to have several things in common. Invariably some sort of 'special offer' (ie wills for £49) to get in the door, with the far more lucrative add ons following for the unsuspecting. None of which are flagged up in advance on their websites.

These are the 'probate/executorship/lifetime storage' services that cost many hundreds of pounds - often thousands extra.

There's invariably no redress for the client - and on top of that what exams/training have any of these firms had in writing wills? The 'consultant' (euphemism for salesman) who visits you in your home will undoubtedly have had little or none.

The law also allows these unethical practices to go on, and even then there's no guarantee that the will will actually do what you want it to. And of course because of the legal and technical nature of a Will, these ticking timebombs will lay dormant and will only be discovered once you've died and therefore too late to put right.

I agree that it really is about time that the government regulated this murky business once and for all. I am also very impressed in the IPW as they seem to have very high standards, but it seems only a small amount of willwriters actually bother to join. And why would somebody who was flogging pensions as an IFA a few weeks ago want all the expense of proper training, insurance and sticking to a code of conduct when they don't have to?

As things stand it's all a bit of a lottery - and as we've seen solicitors don't guarantee that the service will be any better - though at least they're insured and regulated. On top of that they are generally quite expensive (particularly for the STEP qualified ones who have passed exams to demonstrate their expertise) and not really a moneysaving option for a lot of people.

Perhaps Martin Lewis should look into this and put together an article/thread/vote on the subject?

RiskyBusiness_2

I don't think there is any doubt here that most people need a will, especially if you own your own property. There are hundreds of horror stories floating about concerning people that have died intestate (without a will).
I recently finished working for a national will writing company. It's a sales job, pure and simple. A couple of days training and then off to visit people in their homes.
To be fair to myself I did try to give all the best advice I could regarding trusts, Inheritance Tax, Intestacy law etc.
The company I worked for also had a product available for £2500.00. This would cover the storage and the updates of the wills for life and guarantee that the professional executor appointed could charge no more than 1% of the value of the estate for its administration.
I did a bit of research by phoning around various solicitors in my home town to ask how much they charged for administering someone's estate after their death. I found a couple of them that would charge 1% or less and they would store the clients wills free of charge as part of the service.
This was my turning point, being an ethical kind of guy I found that I couldn't feel comfortable any more sitting in front of a couple of pensioners trying to get them to part with £2500.00 when all they had to do was phone around like I did and a get exactly the same service for no more than the cost of their wills. Being pensioners they are probably never likely to need their will updating in the few years they have left.

My advice is to shop around, get all the advice you need, then when you are completely happy with the costs involved. do it.

As for the Institute of Professional Willwriters, this is just a self regulating organization set up by one man who is doing exactly the same as all the other willwriting companies out there. They have no authority whatsoever but have done a great marketing job on the public by giving the impression that they are some sort of governing authority.
Any one of you could set up and call yourselves something important and do exactly the same thing. Don't be fooled.

One of the willwriting companies mentioned here as Solicitors Probate Services Ltd has now changed their name to Estate Protection Services to avoid all the bad publicity they had in the press.
The name might have changed but their way of doing business hasn't. So beware.

monkey_spank

RiskyBusiness wrote:

I recently finished working for a national will writing company. It's a sales job, pure and simple. A couple of days training and then off to visit people in their homes.

That's interesting. Perhaps you could tell us more about your experiences with this company - ie who they are, how long you stayed with them and why you left.

RiskyBusiness wrote:

To be fair to myself I did try to give all the best advice I could...

I get the impression that you felt the training you received was inadequate. What training did you receive then?

I take it from your remark about the IPW that the firm you worked for wasn't a member. Could you tell us what protection there was for the public from this firm and what other willwriting organisation better protects the public from the unethical, unprofessional and unqualified than the IPW?

RiskyBusiness_2

The majority of Willwriting companies are basically middle men. The company I worked for was more or less a marketing company.
We had canvassers working in busy stores and supermarkets approaching people and and pointing out to them the importance of making a will.
The idea was to get their name and phone number, this was then passed on to our in-house call centre. The girls at the call centre would ring the customer at home with the aim of booking an appointment for the will consultant.
The will consultants job is to take the customers will instructions and point out to them any other problems they may come across, with the aim of selling them more expensive products.
The company itself had already negotiated fees with outside solicitors. For example, there would be a list of three independent solicitors firms who had already agreed to administer anybody's estate for 1%. The will consultant points out to the client that most high street banks would charge 4% - 5% to be their executors but for a fee of say, £2500.00 we can guarantee they won't be charged more than 1% of the value of their estate, theoretically saving them a fortune.
Once all the paperwork is completed, the willwriting company gets the will fees and the £2500.00 from the client and then another £100.00 commission from the independent solicitor who has just been named as executor.
As I said in my first post, there is absolutely no need for anyone to pay these fees, just shop around and find the best deal you can.
Most solicitors will store the will for free if they are named as executor.

I have seen it mentioned that you should appoint a friend or family member to act as executor. I disagree, it can be a lot of hard work and running around if you don't know what you're doing.There will be arguments between other family members and if they make a mistake then they are liable for that estate for the rest of their lives.
Have a look on Google for 'role of executor'. It is far more complex than people realise.
With the price of houses these days you could be talking about an estate worth many hundreds of thousands of pounds. Would you let an amateur mess about with that sort of money and hope it works out ok? Many people still do. You're not doing yourself or your relatives any favours. Take your will seriously and do it properly to protect your beneficiaries.

localhero

Risky business, although you didn't answer most of monkey spank's questions, you have at least confirmed what's going on out there with the murky world of unregulated willwriting companies.

And that is, unsuspecting and vulnerable people are being fleeced by unqualified 'consultants' for services that they weren't expecting and didn't need.

Most ordinary people are able to be an executor with minimal cost. The most important qualities are honesty and being reasonably sensible. Your executor can and should where necessary, obtain legal advice if they have any difficulty.

Taking £2500 upfront for a service that carries no guarantee it will be fulfilled when the time comes is not only unethical, it also prevents the family from taking up the role as executors if they feel they are able to carry out the task themselves. (It's too late by then to have them replaced).

It's organisations that you were involved in that give ethical and honest willwriters a bad name, ensuring solicitors remain the default choice for those requiring a Will. The sooner the sector is properly regulated the better.

Incidentally on the subject of regulation, the vast majority of my clients when asked, have no idea that the law allows anybody to set up business as a willwriter without any formal training whatsoever, and practically all think that the profession should be subject to compulsory regulation.

sloughflint

Here's another thread featuring similar products:

JPB wrote: »

We agreed to see a consultant from PEP (Personal Estate Planning) to make joint/mirror wills for £78. Seemed a good deal as he came to our home in the evening. Generally it was very interesting what he explained about inheritance tax and about how if you let a bank or solicitor (who offer free will writing) they will charge you anything up to 5% of the estate value to administor the will. This could easily be a bill of £ks!!
Then came the sales pitch. They offer a service were they will execute your will for not more than 1%. If you are ever made executor of someone elses Will they will do it for you and again guarantee to do all the work for less than 1% of that estate. The charge = a one off payment of £2450!
We didn't go for that so they then offered for £750 a service were they will store your will and update it for free as many times as you want and guarantee that they will be executor of your will and not charge more than 2.5%?
Is this a rip off? They showed a Times report listing the charges that banks and solictiors make for administering a will and their sales pitch is that people worry about the incidental cost of will writing and don't think anything of the cost of administering the will. This is a service they say they will perform for a lot less than solictors or banks? Is this true or just a sales pitch? I have no experience of how difficult it is to administer a will and what the legal costs are? Any advice gratefully received.

All seem to promote the will storage with extra added benefits thrown in.

But here are a couple of posters who had trouble retrieving their stored Wills when the companies ceased to exist:

isayoldchap wrote: »

I did have my Will stored at a company in Croydon,Surrey but as the company moved on my Will went to Pwwl.I didn't have a choice and had to deal with them direct.
Instead of storing mine they stored my partners instead.I complained and then instead of storing mine they stored my parents.

Confused.The person I spoke never phoned back.

Now this morning a letter arrives asking my partner for cash to restore her will.
What sort of hassles could they put someone through who dies?
They seem to be members of The Society of Will Writers(some buddy company no doubt-I won't want to complain further but my god they must be cowboys........Beware....oh and they come from Matfield,Kent with some correspondence going to Ipswich

and:

Steel wrote: »

Just a quick update on the wills situation.

The client who I referred to in my previous post has come back to me and told me National Legal Services was acquired by a company called Just Wills in West Sussex.

I emailed them this morning asking if they could help me retrieve our wills and received the following reply:


We are able to help you with this matter. To be able to return your documents, we will require a letter signed by yourself and your husband requesting that we return the documents to you, as well as some proof of identification for you both (photocopy of driving licence or passport).
On top of this, there is a retrieval fee of £38.20 which can either be paid by cheque, or over the telephone using any of the major credit cards.

They were expected to pay to retrieve their Wills which were potentially worthless in view of what has emerged about NLS ( see post 36).

sloughflint

RiskyBusiness wrote: »

I recently finished working for a national will writing company. It's a sales job, pure and simple.

Many thanks for taking the time to join MSE and confirm it.

RiskyBusiness wrote: »

One of the willwriting companies mentioned here as Solicitors Probate Services Ltd has now changed their name to Estate Protection Services to avoid all the bad publicity they had in the press.
The name might have changed but their way of doing business hasn't. So beware.

Also thanks for this. Are you sure you got the name right? Nothing came up on google or yell.