PRACTICE AREAS

We are able to provide a wider range of services than our competitors, for lower fees and to a higher standard of service. Below is some information on the services we offer our clients:

Wills

We are able to draft a wide range of Wills for your clients, for a competitive fee. A Will is probably the most important document that your clients shall ever sign and it's vital that this is dealt with professionally and in accordance with your clients' intentions.

When it comes down to Will drafting, we're able to deal with everything from the most straightforward work to the most complex family/tax situations. In total, we have drafted over 50,000 Will documents and we look forward to dealing with far more in the future!

Trusts in Wills

We provide full training to our business partners on a wide variety of different Trusts and are also able to assist with bespoke advice for their clients where a situation is more complex.

In particular, we are able to set up Property Trusts, which protect half of the family home from care home fees and remarriage. These are our most popular form of Trust and potentially stand to save clients hundreds of thousands of pounds in care home fees.

We also offer a range of other Trusts, including but not limited to:

Children's Protective Trusts;
Disabled Persons Trusts;
Asset Preservation Trusts;
Family Trusts; and
Nil Rate Band Discretionary Trusts.

Home Protection Trusts

Through our 'sister firm', Premier Solicitors Ltd, we are able to provide Home Protection Trusts and register these at the Land Registry.

Home Protection Trusts can provide a huge range of benefits for clients, in particular:

Avoiding the need for expensive and time consuming Probate for the house to be sold on their deaths;
Potentially avoiding third party creditor claims; and
Protecting clients' grandchildren who are going through divorce, bankruptcy or debt problems.

Lasting Powers of Attorney

Enduring Powers of Attorney were replaced by two new types of Lasting Power of Attorney in 2007 (Property and Financial Affairs, and Health and Welfare).

These documents allow clients to pick who they would like to act for them should they lose mental capacity and are one of the most important documents that your clients will ever sign.

We are able to prepare these documents and also register them for your clients, for a competitive fee.

We are also able to prepare Advance Decisions, which allow clients to make decisions relating to their care in advance, usually in relation to life sustaining treatment should they be in a vegetative state.

Storage and Amendments Service

It is incredible how many Wills are lost or even destroyed in cases of fraud. Goodwills Legal Services Ltd offers a secure storage facility for clients, which ensures that their documents are kept both safe and confidential.

We also offer a 'Storage and Amendments Services', where we charge a reasonable annual fee in order to provide clients with any simple amendments they may require for no extra charge. Given that Wills have to be updated due to marriage, divorce, new children, change in circumstances and many more scenarios, this is a very popular service.

We split the commission received with our business partners, so that whilst we carry out the amendments, they still receive a considerable and lucrative passive income stream.

Probate

Our 'sister firm' Premier Solicitors offers clients a full Probate service, including on substantial taxable Estates. They offer competitive fees and, due to the efficiency of their Probate operation, we are still able to offer substantial referrals for this work.

They also deal with Grant Only work and also Grant/Assent (property transfer) work, which is particularly common on first death when there is a Property Trust to be set up.

They are also able to offer a full range of ancillary Probate services, including sale of the house, as is often desired by the Executors.

Finally, we can also offer clients a free initial consultation with no obligation to proceed, where we will let them know the next steps and whether Probate is required in their circumstances.