A question about : Trust Inheritance Will Writing Service
Hello
I am posting for the first time to try to get some info about a company called Trust Inheritance based in Weston-Super-Mare. They cold called my wife to offer a Ј49 Will writing and storage service. We accepted this offer as we were wanting to write a Will anyway. The rep turned up and off we went, setting out who was to get what etc.
Along the way the subject of executor(s) came up, with examples of what a time consuming and potentially expensive and stressful role this could be for someone with no legal experience etc. So it became more and more obvious that a solicitor could not only stand paying out the death duty before reclaiming this later but would also be more able to 'wind up the estate' more efficiently than Uncle Jed who agreed 20 years ago to act as executor but who now lives in Spain and is a bit deaf etc etc......
So then as you agree that it would be easier for TI solicitors to deal with it all you are then asked how you wish to pay the Ј2600 for them to do this....
I thought we were getting a lot for Ј49......
However, it does seem like a good deal.
Ј2600 one off + 1% max fees when 'winding up the estate' on each death. Complared to 4% on each death when using a solicitor or bank.
Examples given for a Ј750k estate = 2600 + 7500 + 7500 = 17600
v 30000 + 30000 = 60000 (+cost of storing Will etc)
or a Ј42,400 saving........
on todays property prices.
Sounds as if Wills are being sold on what they cost NOW to set up but not on what they cost to sort out at death. Obviously it won't effect you too much but who would you rather give th money too after you are gone - the solicitor or the kids....?
What do you think? Is this genuine or a scam - has anyone else come across this firm or know anything that would put my mind at rest......??
Thanks in advance
Mark
Best answers:
- depends upon how complicated your affairs are.
most wills are pretty straightforward and the best people to be executors are the beneficiaries as they have a vested intersted in getting the job done.
basically appoint your heirs....they tend not to be forgetful and it costs nothing at all.
but without knowing how complicated your affairs and wishes are it's impossible to say. - Seems a bit pricey my Dad and my uncle were the executors of my Gran's will and while there is a lot to do upon death the executor doesn't have to do it all and in the case of a solicitor acting as executor I doubt they ever do.
Her estate was in the region of £750K and whilst I do remember there being a couple of things that a solicitor had to do I know for sure the bill wasn't anywhere near even the £17,600 mark.
My Dad is no legal eagle and he managed to carry out the job ok. - Mark - I was a consultant for Trust Inheritance for a year - I only left because my acting career took off. A con it is certainly NOT. They are a very reputable company and professional. The fees they charge for the Wills for Life service is extremely competitive and although it is impossible to say whether any cash savings will be made in the long run (due to everyone's individual circumstances), they will certainly alleviate any burden that your family will have. The peace of mind is worth the price and for sure the 1% is a great deal for estate administration.
- I'll be checking the News of the World this Sunday to see how many solicitors are accused of murder.
However the advice is correct. The executors should always be trusted family members with a power in the Will allowing them to appoint professionl advisers if they need (eg valuers, solicitors, accountants etc).
The executors can then deal with the simple things if they wish and pay for the more complex work after getting several quotes. - How interesting, I actually am currently employed by Trust Inheritance and would like to make a few pointers:
Every one agrees that when it comes to Estate Administration Banks are rather expensive, latest information from HSBC states: Ј750 set up fee plus 3% of the first Ј300,000 plus 1% of anything else above Ј300,000 plus VAT.....please note HSBC minimum charge for executing an Estate is Ј2,000 plus VAT.....they are not the cheapest yet they are by far not the most expensive.
Plenty of information at https://www.ifishoulddie.co.uk
Solicitors will charge by the hour and the maximum hourly rates are fixed by the Law Society.....one local (to me) solicitor quotes Ј135 ph for Legal Executive (please read: young lady at reception who answers phones and does typing) and Ј170 for a Probate Specialist, with additional charge of 1/2% of the value of the house the deceased lived in plus 1% of the remainder plus VAT plus disbursements.
Trust Inheritance offers their clients a Personal Estate Plan membership that will give them a bit more than expected. - Free legal advice to the member for any estate they have an interest in (includes all the estates this member is an executor for), and this advice is available for as long as it takes to wind up the Estate in question.
- Free legal advise to the members executors, again for as long as it takes to wind up the estate.
- Free set up of any Trust which is required following the will's instructions (remember that people under the age of 18 can not legally sign a receipt, so any inheritance to a minor has to go into Trust, one of these costs Ј500).
- Free legal advice on how to manage a Trust.
- Lifetime storage of the wills and unlimited updates to the wills.
- 10% discount on any funeral arranged by the member or for the member when such funeral is booked via DIGNITY.
- Free bereavement counselling.
- Have your will drawn up by a solicitor....if you haven't already got one...ask friends and family who they use...name a relative or close friend as executor...upon any changes in circumstance...death/marriage/divorce or changes in estate/savings/property revisit your solicitor and get will rewritten....
it could be a false economy and a real disaster to do it any other way....I'm not saying ALL will writing companies are poor...and I know legal advice is not always best when it comes from the legal profession....but for a watertight legal document....use someone from the legal profession....you may find its not that expensive....
here's a link to the recent ITV program about "Will Writers" who are springing up all over the country
https://www.itv.com/News/tonight/epis...s/default.html
there's also loads of great information on the subject and more links at the bottom of the page for the "Institute of Professional Willwriters" etc etc and following links you can search for
Contacts
The Law Society
https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/home.law
(for a list of reputable lawyers)
Association of Contentious Trust and Probate Specialists
https://www.actaps.com/
(for a list of reputable contentious probate lawyers)
Solicitors Regulation Authority
https://www.sra.org.uk/consumers/consumers.page
(regulatory body of The Law Society)
Institute of Professional Will Writers
https://www.ipw.org.uk/
(for a list of reputable will writers)
Do a search and see if Trust Inheritance is affiliated to any of the professional (or reputable as ITV put it!) bodies. - For the record: I came across this forum as I was doing a bit of research on line, and as an employee of Trust Inheritance I thought I should expand a bit more on some of the services that we offer, if it comes across as a sell spiel than be it, I never thought that drumming up business for one's employer was wrong....but I might be.
One thing is quite evident is that not every one actually read the bullet points very well, jus to re-iterate: - Free legal advice to the member for any estate they have an interest in (includes all the estates this member is an executor for), and this advice is available for as long as it takes to wind up the Estate in question.
- Free legal advise to the members executors, again for as long as it takes to wind up the estate.
- Free set up of any Trust which is required following the will's instructions (remember that people under the age of 18 can not legally sign a receipt, so any inheritance to a minor has to go into Trust, one of these costs Ј500).
- Free legal advice on how to manage a Trust.
- Lifetime storage of the wills and unlimited updates to the wills.
- 10% discount on any funeral arranged by the member or for the member when such funeral is booked via DIGNITY.
- Free bereavement counselling.
- This is a firm that quotes Ј49 to get in your door, only to build it up into a nice little earner of Ј2500+ of which the 'consultant' will take a nice little cut in commission.
You will almost certainly be visited by a salesman, that is a person who will have no legal qualifications whatsoever. Instead of practical advice on tailoring your Will correctly, you will be told plenty of horror stories about what can go wrong with probate.
What they won't tell you is that most executors can be a trusted friend or family member who is most likely to be able to administer an estate for nothing apart from the probate fee and a few postage stamps.
Quote: - OK, let's go in stages:
I am not even going to answer to monkey spank, the reason for it is that he obviously has done no research whatsoever, for his benefit though he should be aware that all estates will be faced with competing claims, the demand, by a funeral director, to be paid for his services is a competing claim on the estate.
As far as the comments from sloughflint I agree with all of it, except that the following points need a little note from me:
Quote:
Originally Posted by expertlinguist
As far as the longevity of the Company goes, no one has a crystal ball to say that we are going to be there in 60 years time or not
So all the more reason to not be tied to a company.
Went to see a client yesterday who chose a local solicitor to write their will a few years ago, the will needed updating so they called at the solicitor office but it is now an employment agency, solicitor retired due to ill health and the Law Society doesn't know where this clients paperwork is...if he would have died in the meantime he would have been intestate.....I believe a Legal Firm that belongs to an Association is far safer than individuals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by expertlinguist
I totally agree with Torby about having a will drawn up asap by a professional and about keeping it up to date.
Do the people who visit draft the Wills and what are their qualifications?
What form of insurance is there if there later is found to be a problem with a Will?
The visiting consultant only takes down instructions, although there is a form to fill in where relevant question about children (including adopted and step) previous marriages and anything that could be described as unusual is covered.
Every consultant has to pass a yearly exam to obtain a legal licence, before they are let loose (so to speak) on the general public.
The Company has liability insurance (no body trading in whatever this day and age should be without it) which also covers all consultants.
Quote:
Originally Posted by expertlinguist
I never thought that drumming up business for one's employer was wrong....but I might be.
I'm not sure that you have drummed up business but it is generally frowned upon on MSE.
It was not my intention to drum up business for TI on this forum, if that is the impression I gave I do apologize again, as I explained earlier I came across this thread by accident as I was doing some research on line.
Now quickly to jimmo:
You or your wife, depending on the size of the estate, will not inherit everything by default under intestacy rules; if there is a property and you are "joint tenants" the property passes on by survivorship not by will, but the rest could be divided among other living relatives, in your case your children. If you are positive that the surviving spouse is never going to need care provided by the state than your assumption is nearly right, because if you do not provide on first death for the children to eventually inherit the family home, and you can only do this by will, then the property might be lost to "care home fees".
Regards all - Expertlinguist must have posted as I was composing my post. I'm not going to remove my post but briefly scanning his/her post some of mine may not be relevant.I'll come back to it later.
.......
Quote: - Irrespective of the pros and cons of the quality of the TI service and products and their method of marketing, ask yourself:
Would I spend Ј2000+ for a car to be delivered to me in 20 years time, knowing full well that the car maker could go bust at any point in the next 20 years? Thereby I don't get my car and I don't get to see my Ј2,000 ever again.
If the answer is Yes, then the TI service is for you.
If the answer is No, then the TI service is not for you. - Put like that, it's so obvious however I'm sure people can be easily persuaded.That's what worries me.
- At this point since everybody has an opinion.....is that the same as opinionated....I feel it would be totally useless to carry on the debate.
If I ever thought that this forum was only for flaming wars probably I would have never have contributed my first tuppence.
Preconceived ideas and inflexible attitudes have been the scourge of humanity from the day Eve handed the apple to Adam.
Yet again, I do apologize for the my audacity in entering this thread, believing I was going to contribute a slither of information.
One last thought....if one bites a sour apple, all one has to do is spit it out and take a spoonful of honey, yet the apple will never be but a sour apple.
Regards
All this for an upfront payment of Ј2,500, and the cost can be spread over a number of years.
Potential saving of: Ј250 if two wills are to be stored for 20 years; Ј100 for a couple of updates to the will; Ј1,700 for legal advice for 5 hours each death; Ј6,000 based on an Estate valued at Ј300,000 administered twice; Ј500 when the Trust to save the property from Care Home Fees is set up; Ј300 saving on 5 years of accountant fee for administering the Trust; Ј500 saving on two funerals; Ј200 saving on 4 hours of bereavement counselling. Total Ј9,550...and this is a very conservative figure.
By the way, nobody else in Probate World offers this type of service!
Now to answer sloughflint point by point:
Ј250 if two wills are to be stored for 20 years….You can store Wills at the probate office for a small one off fee of Ј15 True, so two wills Ј30
https://www.hmcourts-service.gov.uk/cms/1202.htm
Ј1,700 for legal advice for 5 hours each death…. Which may not be required and anyway you can call the probate helpline for FREE Probate Court Staff are very helpful, but can not give legal advice, which one will need as soon as there are competing claims on the estate
Ј6,000 based on an Estate valued at Ј300,000 administered twice…OP mentioned Ј2600 plus 1% so no saving here OP reference is to the cost charged by Trust Inheritance to actually be the executors of the estate, which is a separate "product"
Ј500 when the Trust to save the property from Care Home Fees is set up….Shouldn’t this be part of the Will? The will is set up as a Will Trust, no money is payable unless the Trust is set up, which it would not if the second spouse died within 31 days of the first
Ј300 saving on 5 years of accountant fee for administering the Trust…Maybe but how would we know that Trust inheritance is up to the job? Nothing on website. Obviously being a Corporate Trust has got nothing to do with it
Ј200 saving on 4 hours of bereavement counselling….Not everyone needs bereavement counselling I am glad to know that nothing will touch your feelings
Ј500 saving on two funerals…but tied to ‘dignity’ which are an association of Funeral Directors whose prices are in line with the "market", just google them, enter your postcode and you'll see.
Anyhow, I never said that TI is better than solicitors, except that sloughflint does mention that some solicitors are not up to the task, even those specializing in probate.....OK, who to go next then? The Post Office with Ј3.50 for a DIY job? TI is a trust corporation specializing in wills and probate, and our legal department is made up by lawyers who specialize in probate.
As my mention of the description of Legal Executive by a local firm of lawyers, I can not see why it would take a "proper" Legal Executive up to 60 hours to to carry out probate work.....the fact is that I personally know this "Legal Executive", and she's paid Ј7.50 an hour....but that's another issue.
I never advocated that my Company should be nominated as an executor to replace close family, oddly enough we encourage it, we only offer Legal Advice to whoever needs it.
As a small note, if one visits the fool website and looks up probate and such, there is a "real" lawyer who says that nominating friends, from his previous experiences, is not a good idea.
As far as the longevity of the Company goes, no one has a crystal ball to say that we are going to be there in 60 years time or not, alas I know of at least two solicitors who having ceased to trade due to death (their own) all their unfinished business remained so because they were not members of any professional association.
I totally agree with Torby about having a will drawn up asap by a professional and about keeping it up to date.
last but not least.....I would like to know how many of my critics actually do have a will and how many have experienced the loss of a spouse, and if they did what frame of mind they were in when it happened and lastly how many did administer an estate without any legal advice? After all, administering an estate is a legal procedure and as such it would be foolish, for the inexperienced, to try to do so without legal aid.
.........Now let's get prepared for the onslought.......
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