I had hoped that we would not see a return to the late nineties when low cost Wills, free Wills were rife within the profession. Unfortunately, we are seeing a resurgence of this practice, which is neither good news for the profession or the consumer as most clients who took these services believing they were…
We’re incredibly proud to report that The Society of Will Writers is celebrating 25 years trading this year. When the SWW was first formed in 1994 it had a very simple objective – To provide a framework of support and self-regulation for will writers. Combined with this, we sought to highlight the need for a…
On 1 June 2018 the CMA launched a market study into the provision of funeral services in the UK. This was in response to concerns that there is a lack of transparency in the funeral market and rapidly increasing prices. In particular they investigated the following two points: how competition between funeral directors works and…
We reported late last year that probate fees would be rising as the fee structure for obtaining a grant was due to be changed from a fixed fee to a tiered structure based on the value of the estate. This would have resulted in probate fees rising up to £6000 for the highest value estates.…
The High Court have ruled in the case of Whittaker v Hancock [2018] EWHC 3478 (Ch) that an attorney who was acting under a property and financial affairs LPA could step in to replace a donor who had lost capacity as a personal representative. John Parker (the deceased) had executed a will in 2003 appointing…
Earlier this year the Office of Tax Simplification (OTS) was asked by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to conduct a wide review into inheritance tax (IHT), looking into it from both a technical and administrative standpoint. The report received a record amount of responses from a wide variety of people effected by IHT. Over 3000…
We are all aware that Will Writing is not regulated by statute, but that does not mean it’s not regulated at all. Consumers, if they feel they feel that their complaint has not been dealt with properly or that they are being ignored, which appears to be a growing trend, not only among will writers…
Happy birthday to us! The SWW has turned 24. In April 1994 the Society of Will Writers was formed to provide support to members and protection to clients of SWW members. 24 years later we are still here, still providing support to members and still protecting our member’s clients – just on a far bigger…
What is Run-off insurance? It is often seen as being something vastly different to normal professional indemnity insurance however, there is no great mystique to run-off insurance. The key to understanding run-off cover is in understanding the “claims made” nature of the protection. Given that you have probably already been purchasing professional indemnity (PI) insurance…
Introduction The GDPR will apply in the UK from 25th May 2018 and is similar in many ways to the existing UK Data Protection Act 1998 (DPA). The GDPR applies to personal data processing by organisations operating in the EU and organisations that offer goods and services to individuals in the EU and aims to…
