SWW Conference Insight 2018 | Page 10

Ensuring protection for the Society of Will Writers Wills and future probate income! Since October 2017 Certainty the National Will Register® and The Society of Will Writers and Estate Planning Practitioners have been working together to provide SWW members the facility to register their Wills with the National Will Register. The National Will Archives (NWA) is the storage facility available to SWW members. All Wills stored within this facility are also registered with Certainty the National Will Register. There are over 7.7 million Wills within the registration system with the figure rising daily. In addition, thousands of Certainty Will Searches are conducted every month by next of kin and probate professionals checking that no Will exists or checking the validity of the Will held. Every day, Will writing businesses both large and small register their Wills with the National Will Register; this is not only to protect their client’s beneficiaries but their future probate income. In the last year, there have been many found Wills thought to be missing or not to exist that were a direct result from Society of Will Writers members Wills being registered on the National Will Register. At the time of writing, it is understood three of these found Wills were drafted by retired or closed down Will writers who chose to securely store their clients’ Wills with the National Will Archives. Without the safe storage of these Wills, coupled with Will registration, the Wills that were found may have been impossible to locate; resulting in the estates being distributed incorrectly and the testator’s wishes not being adhered to.