Wills & lasting powers of attorney

We will advise on how to ensure that your Will is safe from possible claims on your estate after you die. We will explain what property you can leave by your Will, and what you can’t. We can advise you on how to choose your executors and help you to find solutions if there doesn’t seem to be an obvious choice. We can also advise you on how best to make gifts to members of a group rather than to named individuals, such as your godchildren or any charities benefitting a particular cause.

We will write your Will using modern legal Will writing conventions, dispensing with unnecessary legal jargon while also ensuring that the Will can be accurately interpreted after your death. This will eliminate any confusion in the administration of your estate and ensures that your wishes are carried out, irrespective of who ultimately interprets and executes your Will.

We ensure that you are comfortable with what your Will does, and confident that it achieves what you want it to. In addition to providing you with a copy of your Will itself, we will also produce a document that explains each of the legal provisions and their intended effect for your peace of mind.

As your Will is a legal document, there are certain formalities which must be respected to make sure that the Will is valid. One of these involves the way the Will is signed, in the presence of appropriate, independent witnesses.

If you would prefer to arrange for the signing and witnessing yourself, then we will advise on the necessary steps. Alternatively, you are welcome to visit any of our offices, where members of our team will act as witnesses to the signing of the Will, at no additional cost.

You can be confident that the original document is safe and available for your executors, even if your own copy has been lost or accidentally destroyed. We will store both a hard copy of the original Will and keep a scanned copy on our secure cloud-based computer system.

We will meet face-to-face in one of our boutique offices, or over a secure Microsoft Teams videoconference, to explain in plain English what a Lasting Power of Attorney achieves, and to explain the process of putting one in place. We will discuss the options available to you. We can also guide you as to the sort of person or people you might want to choose to be your attorney(s).

We can offer home visits for a fee of £150 + VAT to any destination within ten miles of one of our offices.

We will prepare two Lasting Powers of Attorney for each of you, one each relating to Property & Financial Affairs and Health & Welfare.

It is a formal requirement that a Certificate Provider signs each LPA. The Certificate Provider is an impartial person who helps protect your interests by checking that you understand the LPA and that you are making it of your own free will. We will fulfil this role for you.

You and your chosen attorney(s) must sign the application in a particular order, and have those signatures witnessed. We will invite you and your attorneys to one of our offices so that we can act as witnesses and ensure that all necessary legal formalities are respected.

Your Lasting Powers of Attorney must be registered with the Office of the Public Guardian before they can be used. We will make sure the necessary forms are submitted on your behalf, and deal with any subsequent correspondence from the Office of the Public Guardian. We will let you know when your Lasting Powers of Attorney have been registered, and the documents have been stamped as “validated” and returned to us.

You can be confident that the original, validated LPAs are safe and available for your attorney(s) to access, should they ever need them. We will store both a hard copy of the validated LPAs and keep a scanned copy on our secure cloud-based computer system.

Please note that our fees do not include the registration fees payable to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). The OPG charges £82 per LPA document registered (£328 in total for a couple registering two LPAs each). We will ask you for a cheque in respect of the registration fees, which we will send to the OPG with your completed LPA forms.