For the team here at head office not a day goes by
where somebody doesn’t call us to find a member
whose services they can use, or to check if someone
they’re considering using is a member. Whether they’re
looking for Wills, LPAs, someone to look over some
existing documents or even just provide them with
some advice, the 1,600 members we have across the
UK as well as Europe and even further afield mean it’s
very rare that we find ourselves unable to point them
in the right direction. Occasionally however, a caller
has some concerns over the person, or company that
they’re considering using, or have already used and
whether or not this is going to cause any problems for
them.
If you weren’t aware, Will writing is an unregulated
profession and as such we always advise to check
in the first instance that whoever you’re considering
engaging for legal services belongs to either a
voluntary self-regulatory body such as The Society of
Will Writers, or, if they’re a solicitor you should check
that they’re registered with the Solicitors Regulation
Authority. Membership to The Society of Will Writers
carries with it three mandatory requirements. These
are holding a minimum of £2m professional indemnity
insurance, completing regular training through ongoing
CPD as well as adherence to our Code of Practice. We
also audit our members on an annual basis to ensure
best practice and all this together is what makes our
members safe to do business with.
Our membership is on an individual basis, so it’s only
ever the person who is registered as a member and not
the company as we do not have any kind of corporate/
company membership. All Society members are issued
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the society of will writers
with a unique ID number as well as an ID card. They are
expected to carry these with them when meeting with
clients so don’t be afraid to ask them to present their ID
card to you. If you’re ever unsure you can always check
with us to see if someone is a member by looking on
our find a member page, although not all members have
a web listing, or call us and we will check our records for
you.
If they’re not a member, there’s no need to panic. Whilst
we’d love for all will writers out there to join the Society,
we realise that for as long as the industry remains
unregulated and the will writer has a choice in the matter,
this is unlikely to happen. They could be a member of
other membership bodies like ours, or they could be
registered with the SRA so you may want to check
elsewhere. It just means that it’s important you do your
due diligence before inviting anyone into your home or
handing over any money, because without the backing
of a professional body you may not have any protection
should anything go wrong. Occasionally something
does go wrong, but where the person in question isn’t a
member there is unfortunately little we can do. We only
have powers over those who are registered with us, in
which case you may need to turn to a solicitor or your
local trading standards for help.
Always be sure to look out for the Society logo, our
special 25 th anniversary logo or our Safe to do business
with logo.