As an Executor or Personal Representative, dealing with Probate and an estate comes at an already difficult and sad time. It can be a time consuming responsibility. We can help you. We can look after all aspects of the administration of an estate on your behalf, that can all too often become a minefield of problems and we will liase with you throughout it all.
Based in Failsworth Manchester, our office has the benefit of free parking and disabled access. You will receive a warm welcome.
However, we also offer home visits and a free initial consultation in your own home at a time that is convenient for you.
Call now on 0800 294 306 for advice and further details or email jo-ann.mason@wesolicitors.com
Office of the Public Guardian – Fee increase
As from 1st October 2011 the fee to register a Lasting Power of Attorney or an Enduring Power of Attorney will increase from £120 to £130. Forms have been updated to accommodate the change.
Other fee structures have also been amended.
The current registration time for LPA’s is 13 weeks
The Legal Services Board (LSB) is today issuing a call for evidence about how best to protect consumers of will-writing, probate and estate administration services. The Board welcomes evidence from members of the public, legal businesses, other businesses active in these markets and all other interested parties. The deadline for evidence is 5pm, Friday 4 November 2011.
On 28 July 2011, the Board gave notice to the Lord Chancellor of its decision to initiate a statutory investigation into the need for regulation in these three closely associated areas. This continues a process begun in September 2010, when the Board asked the Legal Services Consumer Panel to provide it with advice on consumers’ experience of the will-writing market and whether greater protections may be needed. The Panel’s advice and underpinning evidence suggested significant consumer detriment in these markets. This culminated in a recommendation from the Consumer Panel to the Board that will-writing ought to be made a reserved legal activity (meaning a service that can only be undertaken by providers authorised by approved regulators in the legal services market).
We are now seeking further evidence to help us determine whether we should make a recommendation to the Lord Chancellor that will-writing be reserved and, if so, what kind of regulatory protections need to be put into place. We are extending the investigation to the closely associated areas of probate and estate administration because of their relationship to the will-writing market.
Will-writing fraudster jailed
An unregulated will-writer has been jailed for 14 months after fraudulently charging 130 clients between £30 and £60 to fix a non-existent problem with their wills.
Berkshire resident Walter Ventriglia, 47, was running a will-writing firm called Legacy & Law. He wrote to the clients, under the alias Tony Edwards, to advise them that their wills would become invalid by changes to the law unless they paid him to make the necessary modifications. There had been no changes to the law.
He also ran a will storage business, UK Will Register, that he claimed stored clients’ wills in a secure facility in London, whereas in truth they were kept in an airing cupboard at his home.
He was sentenced at Reading Crown Court on 19 August having pleaded guilty to fraudulent trading contrary to section 9 of the Fraud Act 2006.
Friday 26 August 2011 by Jonathan Rayner- Law Society Gazette
More than 1,000 files containing wills and other confidential information were recently found dumped on the pavement outside a will-writing company in Doncaster, the Society of Will Writers (SWW) revealed this week.
The files were left by staff at another will-writing company, Gainsborough-based Minster Legal Services (MLS), which ceased trading in March on the death of its sole director, solicitor David Hodgson, in February.
http://www.lawgazette.co.uk/news/1000-wills-related-files-found-pavement
For piece of mind and to avoid anything like this happening your Will ensure you instruct a fully qualified solicitor. All solicitors are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
To make a Will please contact WE Solicitors, Ivy Mill Crown Street Failsworth Manchester
Telephone Jo-Ann Mason on 0161 683 3191
Thousands of people are being ripped off by companies providing unregulated services such as will writing, claims the first Legal Ombudsman.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14180643
Don’t be one of the statistics! Make a Will with a qualified solicitor. All solicitors are regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority and have to have adequate professional indemnity insurance in place. The cost of making a Will with WE Solicitors is very competitive and exceptional value for money with no hidden charges especially compared to Will Writers. How can you be certain that a Will writer has the required level of expertise ?
To make a Will call Jo-Ann Mason on 0161 683 3191
We Solicitors, Ivy Mill Crown Street Failsworth Manchester M35 9BG
The widow of the late Thomas Smith is challenging a will that cut her out of his £500,000 estate after the couple had separated on bad terms. Olga Smith told the court some exotic anecdotes suggesting that her husband’s mental capacity was impaired by an undiagnosed brain tumour when he made the offending will.
Woman forged partner’s will
A MOTHER-OF-THREE tried to con a family out of their inheritance worth “hundreds of thousands of pounds” by forging her dead partner’s will.
Karen Philips used her laptop to create the false document after boyfriend Stephen Chambers died earlier this year.
Suspicions were raised when she tried to pass the will off as legitimate at solicitors Medlicot and Benson.
Philips, of Crowhill, Godmanchester, appeared in Huntingdon Magistrates’ Court on Thursday (June 23) pleading guilty to the charge of fraud by false representation, under the 2006 Fraud Act.
Magistrates ruled she should be sentenced at Peterborough Crown Court because the crime was so serious, potentially involving an estate worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. The exact amount has yet to be disclosed.
Mr Chambers, of Ouse Valley Way, Buckden, had been staying with Philips, 45, on January 23 when he died, unexpectedly, on her sofa.
A few weeks later a will, purporting to be that of Mr Chambers, was presented to solicitors by Ann Howarth, the defendant’s mother, bequeathing the entire estate to Philips.
The document had also been witnessed by Ms Howarth and one of Philips’s friends, Lucy Smith.
The court was told Philips initially denied the charge of fraud when she was arrested.
But John Nooijen, prosecuting, said said that after being released on unconditional bail she later changed her plea to guilty when police seized her laptop.
She confessed to creating the will on the laptop, printing it out and getting both witnesses to sign it before submitting it to her solicitor.
“She continued to stress that these would have been the wishes of the deceased,” said Mr Nooijen.
Outside of court, Mr Chambers’s brother Mark explained how hard it was for the family to accept that the contents of the fraudulent will were his brother’s last words.
“We had to wait over a month before the family could even see the will, and then it was by way of a solicitor’s letter.
“It didn’t name his children individually and had no personal message or words for any of them. We decided to challenge the will, which made things so much worse.
“We couldn’t focus on burying Stephen because we also had to deal with lawyers at an extremely emotional time.
Mr Chambers’s sister, Tricia, told The Hunts Post: “This whole situation has caused so much anguish and stress because it’s taken so long getting to the stage when we can think about closure.
“We knew we wanted to be at court – to see justice being done and to represent Steve as a family. My stomach was churning over the whole thing.”
Hunts Post 24
It is unlikley any oine would expect their family to be in this situation. However, the best way to ensure this does not happen and to avoid this or any dispute amongst a family and a partner etc is to make a Will with a Solicitor.
The Will can be safley stored with the Solicitor and any question over the validuty of a Will can be greatly reduced if not eradicated.
To make a Will please call Jo-Ann Mason on 0161 683 3191 for iniatl free advice. No obligation
The E&W High Court has rejected a challenge brought by Mrs Leigh Cowderoy of Exeter against her grandmother’s will. The will left Helen Blofield’s estate to a neighbour who had helped look after her in old age.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/8597064/Businesswoman-cut-out-of-grandmothers-will.html
The ONLY way to leave your estate to the person you choose is by making a Will. You can leave your estate to whom ever you decide but if this is then disputed after your death your solicitor will be in a strong position to provide evidence to show that you were capable of making your Will and that you were not coercred. A homemade Will does not provide this form of back up or evidence.
To make a Will call Jo-Ann Mason on 0161 683 3191 for a free initial consultation
Most people are satisfied with their lawyers’ conduct of probate and will-writing services, according to a survey by the Legal Services Board’s Consumer Panel.
More than 90 per cent of the 2,300 people sampled had no complaints about the quality of their solicitors’ will-drafting services. The satisfaction rating for probate cases was 82 per cent.
Along with conveyancing, these two services represent 70 per cent of legal services used by the general public; some 27 per cent of the LSCP sample had paid for will-writing in the recent past.
But many clients consider solicitors over-charged them for their services. Only 56 per cent of the survey’s respondents (of whom 1,114 had paid for legal services within the last two years) felt they had obtained good value for money. And only around half of them expected consumer rights law to protect them when buying legal services.
- STEP Journal
At we solicitors llp we offer a compettive rate to make a Will. A basic Will is just £80 + VAT. Mirror Wills are just £130+ VAT. We also provide a friendly and efficent service. All our staff offer a warm welcome to our clients.
To make a Will or to discuss your requirements further please call Jo-Ann Mason on 0161 683 3191.
we solicitors llp Ivy Mill Crown Street Failsworth Manchester M35 9BG.