Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
The Legal Services Board – Call for Evidence to assist investigation into will-writing, estate administration and probate activities
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
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.
23 May 2011 – STEP Journal
The Treasury’s Office of Tax Simplification has begun a review of small business tax administration.
Earlier this year, the OTS identified tax as a key source of uncertainty and complexity for small businesses.
However, the OTS will not have a free hand. Exchequer secretary David Gauke, in a briefing letter on 9 May, told the OTS that abolition or even suspension of the IR35 contractors’ tax regime is not an option.
IR35 is widely resented by small businesses, especially consultancies. But despite pre-election promises of reform by the Conservatives, the Treasury has been unwilling to come up with a replacement package. “There is no easy answer”, said Gauke in his letter.
Instead HM Revenue & customs will “overhaul the administration” of IR35 – in particular, targeting compliance activity by restricting reviews to high-risk cases.
Also, the promise to integrate income tax and national insurance contributions has been abandoned.
The OTS will deliver its recommendations to the Treasury in time for Budget 2012 – which, given the government’s new policy of full consultation on tax reform, probably means October this year.
See how WE Solicitors, Ivy Mill Crown Street Failsworth Manchester M35 9BG can help you.
WE Solicitors help small businesses plan for the future. Call 0870 165 9413
Contentious Probate Case Update
- From the Solicitors Journal
The decision in Hope v Knight [2010] EWHC 3443 (Ch) is the most recent reported case under the Inheritance Act 1975. The judge dismissed the claims of an estranged wife and a daughter suffering from disability. The couple separated almost 20 years before the testator husband died and had entered into a written separation agreement to deal with their financial affairs. This provided capital provision for the wife and maintenance for the daughter. Following their separation, the testator husband began a new relationship which lasted almost 20 years, until his death. In his will he left everything to his new partner and nothing to his spouse or daughter.
Neither the wife, daughter or partner were particularly wealthy but none of them were obviously unable to provide for themselves. The main factors that appear to have swung the judge towards rejecting the claims were:
- The separation agreement executed in 1991 had given the testator a legitimate belief that he had fulfilled his financial obligations to the wife and daughter, and an expectation that his remaining assets were his to deal with as he wished.
- The testator’s main asset – a house worth £450,000 – had been his partner’s home for years and she had looked after it.
- The length of time that had passed since the testator and his wife divided their assets by agreement.
The daughter’s claim failed, even though she suffered from intermittent depression and obsessive compulsive disorder. The judge said: “I acknowledge that Laura (the daughter) has an aspiration to live in her own place, but that is only likely to come about if her financial position improves significantly. It is not the object of the 1975 Act to bring about such an improvement.
A parent is under no general obligation to house an adult child and does not come under one at death.”
This case is likely to be of relevance in today’s complicated family situations. The judge’s comment about housing and adult children is particularly helpful to those sorts of claims.
At WE Solicitors we can advice you about making a Will, paricularlty if you have children from a first marriage and now have a new partner or spouse. We can discuss the options open to you to protect your children from a first marriage whilst also protecting your second partner and their children.
If you do not have a Will in these circumstances the consqeucnes can be disatruos and very costly.
Contact WE Solicitors, Ivy Mill Crown Street Failsworth manchester M35 9BG
Telephone 0800 294 306 or email jo-ann.mason@wesolicitors.com
Budget 2011 – Update
Inheritance Tax, CGT and charitable giving
WE Solicitors can provide you with further guidance when making your Will and advise you how Inheritance Tax will effect you. If you are an Executor we can advise you on the tax liabilities of the estate. WE Solicitors, Ivy Mill Crown Street Failsworth Manchester M35 9BG.Telephone 0161 683 3191
email jo-ann.mason@wesolicitors.com
Inheritance Tax
The June Budget 2010 confirmed that the inheritance rate nil rate band will remain frozen until 2014-15
Rates and Allowances, 23 March 2011
Inheritance Tax 2010-11 2011-12
Rate 40% 40%
Nil Rate Band £325,000 £325,000
*Budget 2011 announced that from April 2012, a reduced rate of IHT of 36% will be introduced where 10 per cent or more of the net estate is left to charity.
Capital Gains Tax Annual exempt amount — The annual exempt amount for capital gains tax will increase in line with statutory indexation to £10,600 with effect from 6 April 2011.
Capital Gains Tax
Rates for individuals:
Gains before 23 June 2010: 18% / 28% (note 2)
Gains on or after 23 June 2010: 18% / 28%(note 4)
Rates for trustees andpersonal representatives
Gains before 23 June 2010: 18%
Gains on or after 23 June: 28%
Annual Exempt Amount (AEA)for individuals and personalrepresentatives (note 1)
2010: £10,100
2011: £10,600
Annual Exempt Amount (AEA) for most trustees
2010: £5,050
2011: £5,300
Notes
1. Personal representatives are entitled to the annual exempt amount for the tax year in which the individual dies and the next two years.
2. Individuals gains from 23 June 2010 are charged at 18% up to the limit of the basic rate income tax band (if any), and at 28% on gains above that limit.
3. Tax Year 2010-11: Where Entrepreneurs’ Relief applies, gains before 23 June 2010 are reduced by 4/9 and charged at 18%; qualifying gains on or after 23 June 2010 are charged at 10% (with no 4/9 reduction).
4. Tax Year 2011-12: Rates for Individuals 18% up to the limit of the basic rate income tax band (if any) and 28% on gains above that limit.
5. Companies are not within the charge to Capital Gains Tax. Corporation
Charitable Giving Gift Aid donor benefit limits — Legislation will be introduced in Finance Bill 2011 to increase, from £500 to £2,500, the maximum value of the benefits that individuals and companies may receive as a result of making a donation to a charity of more than £10,000 under Gift Aid. The new limit will be subject to the existing rule that the benefit must not exceed five per cent of the gift.
Other tax measures affecting charities
2.116 Inheritance tax: reduced rate for charitable donations – From 6 April 2012, the Government will introduce a reduced rate of inheritance tax of 36 per cent for estates leaving 10 per cent or more to charity. (Finance Bill 2012) (50)
Information from HMRC website