Co op wills v Solicitors

[Sweetpea59]

If you've used Co op for your wills how have you found them? I've read good reviews but just wondering why they're so much cheaper than say a solicitor on the high street. Are they only good for simple wills? Our requirements are simple really. Savings, pensions & house, which we'll do as joint tenants in common. Also, don't need a pile on for trying to avoid care home fees. I believe in protecting your half of your house from remarriage of a surviving spouse.
My mum's solicitor, who had been a long standing solicitor in town for years and years was struck off by the Law Society last year, for what I do not know; so maybe expensive high street solicitors are not always the way to go!

Bump

We did it though a charity and they use the coop. It was a simple mirror will and was very straightforward. Probably about 30 mins on the phone and they sent a draft via email and then a copy for us to sign.

I know that some solicitors charge a fee to store your will, whereas Coop solicitors don’t - that’s the big attraction for me. They’re the biggest provider in the UK so economies of scale mean they can spread the cost between a lot of customers. For an uncomplicated estate they’re very good. One thing you do have to remember is keep your will up to date - any changes to relationships (eg new babies/marriages/divorce) should be reflected in your will as soon as they happen, so factor the cost of that into your thinking.

Also along with your wills get Lasting Powers of Attorney sorted out for yourself and your partner so if you’re incapacitated someone can make financial/welfare decisions on your behalf. Having these in place makes a massive difference if decisions need to be made about care further down the line.

One thing I don't skimp on is legal stuff and I would always get a solicitor to write mine.

If you introduce any ambiguity, nobody can ask you what you actually intended.

Chat GPT can do you one for free, just put in all the details 👍

Trying to avoid paying care home fees is not really in the remit of a will - you’d need to be looking at trusts which is probably beyond the scope of Coop wills.

What makes you think that coop will writers don't use proper solicitors? I don't think it's a binary choice.

Ditto here.Absolutely no problems.

To be fair, you can't say that. Only your executors can.

@LauraNorda absolutely right. The difficulties I am facing as executor, even with legally drawn up wills is horrendous!

So noone can answer the OP s question until they are dead and someone else has executed their will? 😆

Would you be happy for me to write your will for free? The test of the wills robustness can only come after the death of the testator. For that reason, I want a highly experienced solicitor who specialises in will-writing day in, day out and I am happy to pay for that.

Look up reviews for Co op legal. There are some terrible ones for will writing and some excellent ones. However don't assume for one minute that people working on the case are qualified solicitors. They carried out Probate after the death of my Dad, and they made many errors that delayed everything. We had a caseworker who didn't know very much, she was not a solicitor. She miadvised us so many times and clearly had no one checking her work or knowledge. We received a reduction in the fees but I regret not using a local solicitor.

Yeah, and if it's a will done with the input of a charity/ies there's going to be problems.

Nobody is writing a will for free. And it's not been written by some stranger on the internet, it's Co-op's will writing services. It's just free to me, as the charity pays because they get a sizable lump sum when we die.

They DO spend all day every day writing wills. They not just shop workers doing when there is a lull in people buying their weekly groceries.

Coop will also execute the will so they will not complicate things for themselves.

It's a simple mirror will and I've compared it to the one we had done about 10 years ago by a solicitor and it's virtually identical in content.

We used Co Op wills. They were in our view good, though our requirements were quite straight forward. In essence if one us dies the other inherits and then everything goes to the kids equally. They did talk about some more sophisticated estate planning but this was not for us. It did take a bit of time to complete- telephone meeting, draft copy, signature and then final, so if you want things quickly Co Op is not for you. However outside of this it was good and our will is now stored in what I understand to be quite a secure system with copies stored at home.

I used the co-op recently. I liked the convenience of doing it over a teams call and generally the experience was positive although I did keep things relatively straightforward.

Thank you all for your input & replies. I'm going to go with a solicitor. With our own share of our house being protected against remarriage of surviving spouse it's probably better to go this way

What could possibly go wrong?

Co-op will writing is a great, they specialise in this and often far more proficient than many solicitors as it’s their only focus rather than all types of legal issues.

I’ve been an executor 4 times and the two that were constructed by co-op will service were far more straightforward to deal with because things were super clear and without too much “legal” speak.

One of the other two was fine (complicated but not really down to the drafting) but the 4th was unclear, we needed legal advice to know what it meant and even then it was ambiguous because an old draft had been badly updated.

A good solicitor that specialises in wills I’m sure would be great, but I’d take the coop over a random (-ish) high street solicitor every time unless it’s a very complicated wealth scenario.

I'm sure very often the Co-op is fine. As others have said however, they're not even close to all being qualified solicitors and you'll invariably have one qualified person managing lots of unqualified people. They'll use software which will usually answer everything for them and produce the document but they won't necessarily know enough to spot something or think to ask another question which could have a significant impact after someone has died.

I know someone who used the Co-op for probate services and there was a complicated query re a trust. The Co-op solicitor didn't know how to deal with it said so they would have to follow a process which would have caused thousands. My friend contacted a very experienced solicitor specialising in Will drafting and they gave them (free - cause they just spoke for 15 mins or so) advice about how to deal with it without spending £££ because it was something they'd come across before so they knew what to do. That's what you're paying for, I think. Their years of experience, if you go to a good one. Most of them only deal with one area of law but you can always check.

Incidentally, the radio had a section on Chatgpt Wills the other week. Looked great but one of the examples had a big error, the expert said, which would have caused problems later. I think chatgpt might be excellent for those things if you actually know the law!

Will writing services are not regulated in the same way as solicitors. Solicitors have strict rules around professional conduct and separation of client monies. Anyone can do a short course and set themselves up as a will writer.

I’d choose a solicitor every time.