A leading Liverpool law firm is calling for new regulations to be put in place to tackle the rise of nightmare will writing firms.
Maxwell Hodge has seen disputes over wills rise by more than a fifth in the past 12 months, with members of the public becoming victims of cowboy will writing firms.
Kristina Stoddern, Civil Litigation Partner at legal firm Maxwell Hodge said: “This is an ongoing problem, we need more regulation to protect the public from unscrupulous will writing firms.
“Only this week I saw a client whose mother went to a will writer to ensure one her sons wasn’t included in the will. However whilst the will writer ensured her house didn’t go to one of the sons, he didn’t include the rest of her estate within the Will. This part of the estate has now fallen under the rules of intestacy and as it stands the son who should have been excluded will now inherit a share of his mother’s estate.”
She added: “What many people don’t realise about will writing firms is, unlike solicitors, they are not regulated, nor is there any mechanism for complaint. As the will writer is often not insured, there is also no means of redress if things go wrong.”
This trend is reflected nationally with a recent survey revealing two thirds of legal practitioners have experienced incompetency in the will writing market in the past year.
Research conducted by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) highlighted examples of malpractice. One client was charged £12,000 for executor services and the will writing firm then went out of business with the family unable to recoup the money.
Kristina added: “The research highlights how widespread this issue now. Will writing firms need to be better regulated, they should have the appropriate qualifications and indemnity insurance to protect the consumer if something does go wrong.”
The Scottish parliament is currently going through the process of regulating non-lawyer will-writers through the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill, which Kristina would like to see happen in England.
Maxwell Hodge is one of the region’s leading law firms operating from offices stretching from Formby to the Wirral with a city centre office in the heart of Liverpool’s business district.
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