By Mark Taylor, Sales Manager, Estatesearch
Private client solicitors face the pressure of workloads every day. Technology should be able to help but often solutions are complex and it takes time to research, implement and learn new ways of working.
Estatesearch has pioneered the use of new data and technology to help private practitioners identify assets and liabilities since 2018. As a business, we collaborate and invest in developing new products, which utilise new and emerging technologies to add value for our legal clients and their customers. Our goal is to make life easier for legal professionals, streamline workflows, and ease the burden of workloads while mitigating risk by leveraging technology to help simplify processes and improve due diligence.
Estatesearch’s services are used by more than 10,000 legal professionals in over 2,000 firms nationwide.
One key area where technology can help is through utilising automation to replicate data and avoiding the need to re-key information. Not only does this reduce the risk of human error as information only needs to be entered once, but it also dramatically speeds up processes.
We have recently acquired Exizent to offer our legal clients help with specific areas of automation in estate administration.
Here’s an example. Consider Inheritance Tax calculations and filling in IHT 400 forms. The Government provides some guidance for completing Inheritance Tax forms through their Inheritance Tax Toolkit. Whilst much of this information is mainly aimed at tax agents and advisors, it can also be helpful for private client practitioners.
Question 24 in the toolkit states: Has the form IHT400 and all accompanying schedules been checked for completeness and accuracy?
Exizent’s platform is designed specifically for private client solicitors dealing with probate and executry work. All the information relating to the deceased’s estate is input once to enable form automation. Once the asset details are entered, the system automatically identifies which forms need completing and auto fills the key information, removing unnecessary repetition, saving time, costs, and avoiding errors. The forms are then made ready to download and distribute appropriately.
To calculate IHT, accounts need to be prepared. Exizent’s system also automates the creation of estate accounts, detailing what each beneficiary will receive in a widely accepted accounting format. The accounts can be downloaded as a PDF document or in Excel, dependent upon the user’s preference. Estate accounts can also be sent to clients mid-case too. Automating estate accounts in this way saves considerable time and therefore money for the estate, benefiting all parties involved.
To ensure accuracy of accounts preparation here’s where Estatesearch comes in. Question 4 in the Tool Kit states: Has the deceased’s paperwork relating to assets and liabilities been checked, including any overseas assets or assets held in trust? There’s also an entire section relating to asset identification (points 11,12 and 13).
We leverage technology to help private client solicitors identify all the assets within an estate to ensure correct valuation. With billions of pounds still missing in the UK, and this amount increasing every year, our Financial Profile Search (asset search) is a cost effective and efficient way of making enquiries of more than 150 organisations, searching over 450 financial institutions and brands including banks, building societies, investment managers, share registrars, pension providers and insurers to help identify and subsequently reunite assets with an estate.
Through these solutions, we can help improve the way estate practitioners meet points 4, 11, 12, 13 of the Inheritance Tool Kit. Our asset search can also help mitigate risk in these areas, serving as a liability bridge should an unknown asset later come to light.
In Scotland, the Tool Kit is helpful when completing the excepted estate forms IHT205 or C5 as many of the considerations, such as valuation, also apply to these. Our technology solutions can also help here.
Technology can seem complex but when it is designed and leveraged to support specific processes it can save time and mitigate risk for legal professionals.