Understanding the importance of keeping your clients’ wills safe and secure is essential. However, simply storing them in your office or a bank safety deposit box may not be enough. What if the client’s will goes missing or is invalidated due to an unknown later will?
This is where the National Will Register comes in. By registering your clients’ wills with The National Will Register, you can provide an added layer of protection and peace of mind for both you and your clients.
The National Will Register is an online service that securely records the location of a person’s will, enabling it to be easily located in the event of their death. The National Will Register has grown significantly since inception to over 10.5million and is used by thousands of solicitors, Will Writers, & law firms and is firmly established as the National Will Register for the UK, Northern Ireland and Scotland being both legally recognised and endorsed as good and prudent practice. Representative organisations such as The Law Society, IPW & SWW exclusively recommend our Will registration and Will search services.
As a legal professional, registering your clients’ wills with The National Will Register can provide several benefits. Firstly, it minimises the potential for future legal disputes or challenges to the validity of the will. It provides peace of mind for both clients and their loved ones, knowing that the will is easily located and has a greater chance of being honoured as intended. Secondly, it can enhance your firm’s reputation by showing clients that you take every step possible to protect their assets and interest, whilst maximising the probate income opportunity. By registering wills with The National Will Register, solicitors and legal professionals can ensure that their clients wills can be easily located and accessed when the time comes.
It is a natural assumption that because a Will is written it will be found upon death. This is not always the case. In 45% of searches carried out by the members of public ( as opposed to through a Solicitor), a Will was found through a Certainty Will Search.
To register a Will with The National Will Register, we require very basic information, the testator’s name, address, and date of will, as well as the location of the original will. Once registered, these details are stored securely in the system for when the time comes. We do not require a copy of the Will, we purely record the location.
Our benefits provide both good practice for the client and sound commercial sense, ensuring that a Will can be traced after death, preventing probate income loss as well as assisting on reigniting Will writing revenue from existing clients and further strengthen client loyalty
The National Will Register is a valuable resource for legal professionals looking to enhance their services alongside best practice. Protecting your clients’ affairs by ensuring their Will is fit for their unique circumstance is what you do best. Ensuring that when they have passed on their executors or beneficiaries can find the Will is not always so straightforward or in your control. Relationships between a testator and their executors, beneficiaries, family and friends, may be close but can break down. Equally, relationships between the testator and the firm may be close, but must not be taken for granted.
To demonstrate this point, one in every five Certainty Will Searches undertaken by the public and probate profession results in a Will being found where one was thought never to have been written, or the Will being used to distribute the estate had been superseded by the newer found Will using a Certainty Will search.
By providing a convenient, cost-effective solution to ensure that Wills can always be found, you can help ensure that your clients’ final wishes are carried out as intended. So why not register your clients’ Wills today and make the most of the services provided by The National Will Register?