Will writing, probate and estate administration

The Panel has investigated whether the will writing industry should be regulated following concerns over the quality of wills and poor sales practices.

Our call for evidence document described the issues being covered by the investigation. The deadline for submissions was 15 December 2010 and responses can be found through the link in the key documents section below.

The Panel is grateful to members of the public, lawyers and others who have written in with case studies detailing individual problems with writing a will. We have compiled these into separate documents on an anonymised basis, which are published on the submissions page. The Panel's analysis has also drawn on evidence from a shadow shopping exercise commissioned by the LSB, in partnership with the Panel, the Office of Fair Trading and the Solicitor's Regulation Authority.

The Panel's Final Report found that will writing services should be regulated. The Report was published on 14 July 2011. Both the Panel’s report and the independent consumer research can be found below.

The LSB announced a statutory investigation into the regulation of will-writing, probate and estate administration in July 2011 and issued a call for evidence. In Novermber 2011, the Panel submitted an interim response based on an analysis of probate complaints received by the Legal Ombudsman. In March 2012, we submitted a final response to the LSB which called for probate and estate administration services to be regulated alongside will-writing. In April 2012, the LSB issued a consultation containing proposals to regulate all three activities.

Further details of the LSB’s investigation can be found on the LSB's website.