Solicitors & probate lawyers lose out on bulk of probate market
Solicitors and probate lawyers are losing out on the bulk of the probate market, while DIY wills, intestacies and wills without executors are on the rise.
Only 44% of grants of probate in 2011 were issued to lawyers, while the rest were issued to private individuals, according to Probate Service data. Solicitors may be involved at a later stage in many of those grants issued to private individuals.
Some 15,500 wills failed to appoint an executor or the executor had died or was unable or unwilling to administer the estate—five per cent more than in 2010. An increasing number of people are dying intestate each year—nearly one in five
in 2011.
In April, the Legal Services Board (LSB) announced plans to regulate will-writing and estate administration.
However, Kevin Cole, head of research at probate and people-tracing specialist Title Research, says: “The LSB’s plans to regulate estate administration will not affect the vast majority of people who don’t use a probate service provider to administer an estate.
“The risk of mistakes will remain with complex DIY probate, such
