Today the Legal Services Board (LSB) recommended to the Lord Chancellor that willwriting should become a regulated activity.
The Society of Will Writers (SWW) supports any move to raise consumer confidence and has worked closely with the LSB over the past two years to assist them in arriving at their conclusion.
By regulating will-writing in the future, this will give consumers greater confidence when seeking the services of a professional will-writer, and ensuring that they will have redress in the rare event that something goes wrong.
The SWW are disappointed that the LSB have stopped short of recommending the regulation of estate administration as the SWW has long identified and reported the fact that many of the cases identified as poor wills was due more to poor or fraudulent estate administration than to the actual quality of the Will. The SWW does however support the LSB’s reasons and agrees that regulation alone will not stop fraudulent or dishonest practices. The SWW would welcome the LSB looking at estate administration again in the future and we look forward to working with the LSB.
The SWW will support any move for consumers of will writing services to have direct access to the Legal Ombudsman (LeO) sooner rather than waiting for any call for regulation to be approved; this we see as a major step forward in gaining consumer confidence in the provision of will-writing services, as currently consumers have very little recourse should they wish to make a complaint other than through the selfregulating
bodies such as the SWW or through the Courts.
The SWW will continue to work with its members and other organisations to ensure that the highest standards of education and service are maintained and to protect the interests of the consumer as it has done for nearly 20 years.
