WSP Solicitors is an independent legal firm with offices in Stroud and Gloucester, serving Gloucestershire and beyond. The experienced team offers straightforward legal advice and has supported people and businesses for over 260 years.
Bethany Wheadon is a Solicitor in WSP Solicitors’ private client department based in the Stroud office. She says: “When someone passes away, it’s always a challenging time. We try to offer a personal service which takes away any complications to ease the pressure felt when dealing with estate administration. For some, this may just be one meeting to provide initial advice then they can manage the process for themselves.
“We also offer a service where we only obtain the Grant of Probate, and if needed, we also offer a full estate administration service where we take everything off the family’s hands. It depends on circumstances, and we are led by our clients about how they’d like to be supported.
Fact-finding
“For full estate administration, we will initially meet with executors or where we are the executors, we meet with the closest family member. It’s more personal if we discuss matters face-to-face and this gives the opportunity for clients to bring in paperwork which we can look through with them, or they can hand over to us. This fact-finding meeting is essentially to gather information about possible assets and liabilities and to check how confident the client is that they have the last Will and Testament.
“Where we are acting as executors of an estate or if the executor is uncertain as to whether they have found all assets and liabilities of the estate, then we will complete a Financial Asset Search with Estatesearch.
“Estatesearch’s Financial Profile Search offers a cost-effective and efficient way of making enquiries with more than 150 organisations, searching over 450 companies and brands including banks, building societies, investment managers, share registrars, pension providers, and insurers to help identify accounts. We can then make further enquiries if a financial institution confirms the subject holds an account or a pension, for example.
Due diligence
“Recently, I have been working on a high-value probate case worth several million pounds, where an individual had left their estate to various charities. It certainly brought up one surprise for the beneficiaries. As we are acting as executors, we had been provided with a neat folder of paperwork that was found at the property. I wrote to the relevant financial institutions and combed through seven years’ worth of bank statements in addition to monitoring the post at the home of the deceased. We were fairly certain all assets had been accounted for, but I decided to ensure due diligence for such a high-value estate and conducted a financial asset search.
Identifying an unknown life insurance policy
“Out of the blue, Estatesearch flagged an unknown policy. When I made further enquiries, it was confirmed as a £265k life insurance policy which paid out to the estate. It was a big windfall for the charitable beneficiaries and really underlined the importance of completing an asset search as there had been no other evidence of this policy at all. As executors, it also protected our firm too in ensuring all assets had been found.
“Searches are ordered through Estatesearch’s secure online portal and this is straightforward. I like the clarity of the reports which I can share with lay executors if necessary. They provide peace of mind that they have done everything they can to establish the assets within an estate.
“Estatesearch also offers other services including unoccupied property insurance (via Estatesure) which I’ve used recently too. The quote was much more cost effective than another firm I approached and booking through the portal was very easy to do.
“Dealing with a bereavement is a tricky time and we want to be able to give clients space to breathe and process and not to worry. We try to make the estate administration process as simple as possible so it is one thing they do not need to be concerned about. Estatesearch’s searches support us in this so we can provide the best service possible for the families we work with. In the particular example referenced, Estatesearch’s financial asset search ensured the charitable beneficiaries received what was rightfully theirs.”