Buyer Beware
Conned by the pros
Write your own will and you risk creating a vital document that turns out to be invalid or wasteful. Doing it yourself often means doing it badly.
But professionals can also make a mess of it.
"Poor quality wills, sharp sales practices and lost wills where companies disappear without trace." This conclusion, from a 2011 report by the Legal Services Consumer Panel, was backed up by some horrendous case studies:
- a will-writing company produced a will with life insurance policies in trust, but the will-writer failed to provide for any beneficiaries, rendering the policies invalid. This omission possibly increased the estate's inheritance bill by thousands of pounds. When the problem surfaced, the will-writer could not be traced, and he was a franchisee in any event, so the parent company washed their hands of the problem.
- a solicitor was instructed to repair the damage caused by a will-writer who was supposed to set up a trust enabling a married couple to keep their home despite having to pay care-home costs. The couple had been in danger of losing their home.
- The majestic and historic Somerset House was supposedly where one firm of will-writers stored the wills of their clients. In fact, their Somerset house was a barn in the county of Somerset.
The Consumer Panel report contained numerous examples of bait-and-switch, or bait-and-add (you are enticed by a very low fee for writing a will and end up paying more, in some instances, a great deal more):
* a couple agreed to pay a £70 for two wills (£35 each) only to pay £3,000 plus 1% of the estate for additional services;
* a £49.99 plus VAT will rose to £1,000, after which the client was charged another £300 to make changes, and in the end they received no will at all;
* a will, storage and lifetime updates was to cost a woman £50. In the event, the client had to pay £50 per month for two years, and then paid a further £2,375 for further services, in addition to 1% of the value of the estate.
How do such modest initial fees get so bloated?
In some instances, the will writer scares the client with tales of higher fees if they went elsewhere, or of dire legal consequences if they don't proceed. Sometimes the scare tactics are directly threatening or intimidating, as when the will-writer refuses to leave the client’s house until payment is made. In one such instance, a £23 will cost several hundred pounds.
In a Radio 4 interview in summer 2011, the Legal Ombudsman told of an individual whose went to a solicitor's office to make his will. However, the will-writer, although based in the solicitor's office, was not a solicitor - and was not covered by the solicitors' indemnity fund. The customer thought that he had been dealing with a solicitor.
The Legal Services Consumer Panel was established under the Legal Services Act 2007 to provide independent advice to the Legal Services Board about the interests of consumers of legal services in England and Wales.
The Panel notes that "currently, there are no restrictions on who may draft wills for consumers for payment." The Panel wants will-writing services to be regulated.
The Panel noted that "about one in every five
wills prepared by both unregulated will-writing companies and solicitors were failed
by expert assessors in a mystery shopping exercise."
Dr Dianne Hayter, Chair of the Legal Services Consumer Panel, noted that, "although the sample was small, will-writing companies and solicitors were equally culpable, pointing to the need for tighter controls across the sector. Most people were happy with the service they got from will-writers, but there is evidence that a rogue minority is pressuring people to buy services they do not need and charging excessive prices."
Unregulated will-writing companies are thought to prepare about ten per cent of wills – about 180,000 each year.
www.legalservicesconsumerpanel.org.uk
Summer 2011 - Walter Ventriglia, an unregulated will-writer, wrote to prospective clients advising them that, due to changes in the law regarding wills, their wills would become invalid unless they were updated. More than 100 people availed themselves of his service - although the law had not actually changed, and they did not have to alter their wills. In addition, he stored clients' wills in his home airing cupboard - not, as he had advertised, in a secure London facility. Trading as Legacy & Law Ltd, Ventriglia used the alias Tony Edwards, and charged £30 to change a will. He pleaded guilty at Reading Crown Court and received a 14-month jail sentence.
