Providing Excellent Client Care

Utilising Estatesearch for client care

Lucy Cresswell, Solicitor, JMW explains: “Building client relationships and providing an excellent JMW experience is at the heart of our firm: from small value cases to high-net worth individuals, we have the depth and breadth of experience to deliver solutions that work for you. We strive to provide clients with a personable, responsive and expert experience from the start of the case to the end.”

“We use Estatesearch’s reports extensively to enable us to deliver a better service to our clients.  For example, we have a big Court of Protection team and it is incredibly helpful if they can complete a living asset search with Estatesearch for people who have lost mental capacity.  It means their estate is in order and all assets have been identified.  Should they pass away, then the Probate process can be as straight forward and stress-free as possible for the family.

Lucy stated, “I’ve used Estatesearch for the past three years, while training to be a Solicitor and now I’m fully qualified. It has been the centre of how I have built up the probate cases I work on and been really helpful along the way. I now work in our 21-strong private client team in Manchester, specialising in intestacy estate and complex matters.”

“Now as a solicitor, I regularly use Estatesearch’s Financial Profile Search, which is a comprehensive asset and liability report, in addition to Will Searches to ensure we have the most up to date Will.  I also use Estatesearch to place Section 27 notices, for Bankruptcy searches and for share valuations.

“More often than not the searches find missing assets.  These are often NS&I or policies such as life insurance where it can be easy for clients to lose track.”

Estatesearch Success Stories

Ciara Dalton, Paralegal, JMW confirms: “We were recently instructed by an older executor whose niece had passed away.  She had little knowledge about the estate’s assets and so we recommended an Estatesearch Financial Profile search which identified an unknown bank account. When we made further enquiries, we discovered that it contained £35k which ultimately changed the IHT position of the estate.  Our client felt the search which cost less than £200 was money well spent.”

Lucy Cresswell continues: “This is quite typical.  However, sums can be even more significant and the consequences of not identifying all the assets and liabilities even greater, particularly when reporting to HMRC.  We recently helped one executor with an estate worth around £6 million.  His friend had passed away and he was confident he had all the necessary information about his friend’s shares and property.  However, a Financial Profile search subsequently identified a further £1 million in unknown assets.  This information ensured the correct information was supplied to HMRC, avoiding unnecessary interest charges or penalties.” 

Simplifying Estate Administration

Ciara Dalton adds: “The Financial Profile search also shows up company directorships which is helpful.  For one recent case, the search discovered the deceased was a co-director for a number of small firms and had shareholdings in some of them.  This sort of information just can’t be found easily any other way.  Therefore, if you are administering an entrepreneur’s estate who had an interest in private companies, it is well worth a search.

“In this respect I have also found Estatesearch’s Share Verification and Valuation service particularly helpful.  In one Probate case where there was no Will, the sole child supplied us with a retrospective bundle of documents including share certificates.  However, over the years the companies had changed names and it was difficult to identify the correct details.  After five hours I gave Heidi, our account manager at Estatesearch, a call.  She advised me to talk to Estatesearch’s in-house share expert Sian Flanagan.  In the end we posted the documentation to Sian with summary of the estate’s known history and, within a few days, received a concise, accurate report which detailed the position of all the companies and the relevant value of shares at date of death.  It was all complied and secured with a neat bow and cost less than £100!  I was able to share this example with my colleagues at JMW and now as a firm, we regularly use Estatesearch’s Share Verification and Valuation.”

Lucy Cresswell continues:  “Another aspect of our work is referrals from the council or a private hospital who are unable to identify next of kin, so are unaware of any executor.  In these cases, our first step is to use Estatesearch to do a Will search.  On three occasions we have discovered a Will and then the file was handed over to the right executor without incurring unnecessary costs to our firm. 

“We order all the searches through Estatesearch’s portal, which is a free, secure, online hub for reports.  It is so easy to use, our paralegals can input information and we can see what has been returned.  Everything is in once place which means it makes our jobs much easier and we can provide a more efficient service to our clients.

“The increase in digital banking and society’s general shift online means that these days, there is often no paper trail when administering an estate.  More often than not people are not good record keepers. Therefore, we believe asset searches will become even more important over time as our reliance on the online world grows. 

Collaborating with Estatesearch

“Estatesearch go awell beyond what others can achieve.  The company is reputable and we have a close relationship with the team and enjoy working with them.”

Ciara Dalton: “I totally agree.  Estatesearch’s customer service is excellent.  I’ve never needed to chase any reports, even bespoke orders.  They are always returned in a timely fashion which is so important when we are working to key deadlines.   

Lucy Cresswell: “As a firm JMW is very client focused, we are often looking after people during a difficult time and work with many people who are recommended to us.  We offer a personal service and make conversations as comfortable as possible.  Rather than being transactional we offer a JMW experience and as a full-service team we can lean on other departments too, whatever issue needs to be legally resolved.  Estatesearch supports us in our due diligence and means we can provide better outcomes for our clients.”

For further information about JMW Solicitors please see:  https://www.jmw.co.uk/

Originally Published on Today’s Will’s and Probate.