How do you know which solicitor to trust?

[Mamma28383]

My family received advice on setting up a family trust from a solicitor my family found on the high street. They neglected to mention a type of trust that would have been relevant to our circumstances. I found out about this trust later.

I sought some free financial advice from a wills and estates firm and their solicitors said the trust document was badly written and recommended another route. The firm also gave an expensive quote for starting over.

How am I supposed to understand what is on our best interests? I’m so tired and time poor, I hoped that going to professionals they would be able to tell me what would be best? I’m trying to find personal recommendations but I’m not getting much response to feelers I’m putting out.

If you are now clear on the advice you require (as advised by the wills and estates firm) then you could seek a couple of quotations from other forms for the same advice and see how they all compare? It sounds as though you require a solicitor with trusts law expertise so look for firms that specialise in that area of law. Have a look at the website profiles of the lawyers in the private client team of the relevant law firm and see whether they include trusts as an area of expertise and also look to see if they have a STEP certificate (trusts qualification). I hope that helps… You can also look in the legal directories for recommendations (Chambers and Partners, and The Legal 500). These directories are available on line and list firms by reference to specialism (eg private client) and geographic markets - they may not include small high street firms though. I hope that helps.

As the PP mentioned, I would suggest that you get in touch with a solicitor who is a member of STEP, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

If you google "STEP solicitor [name of your town]" then that will give you a list of local solicitors that belong to STEP.

Just as an example of why you need to do this. I searched locally and when I looked at the local branch of a national chain of solicitors I saw that the person who was the "Head of the Estate Planning team" in my local branch wasn't actually a full member of STEP but only a student member, still studying for her qualification (and she was the "Head" of the team!).

If you have a complicated situation then do look out for a solicitor who is a full member of STEP.

Sorry, to add another reply, you can also search on the STEP website

https://www.step.org/directory/members

You can search for full STEP members by city on that website. I just checked for the city that I live in and there are ten STEP solicitors in this city, four working for a firm called Hegarty LLP and the other six working for other firms.

Thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I’m looking specifically for specialists in SEND and vulnerable persons trusts if that changes the advice at all. When I searched STEP under Elderly and Vulnerable persons it has brought up solicitors who are Wills and Trust specialists from two different firms so I might start with them.

I’ve also filtered for location - the firm I wrote about in my OP (where I got my own advice) is not based in my location. For wills and trusts is there any advantage to doing it in person or is it all done online now?

And both law firms are in the legal 500. I might try to get a quote from these two then.

For Chambers Guides I wasn’t sure which practice area to narrow it down to.

Re the wills and trusts firm I used, I spoke to an Estate Planning Consultant who reviewed it with his own solicitor team that I don’t know and the consultant told me that the original trust document was not good. I’m a little unsure about whether we should use the estate planner (I’ve been watching webinars with them which seem good) or get our own solicitors that are STEP members.

Our estate is not complicated and it’s not a huge sum of money, maybe £500k including property. It’s complicated by the fact that we have a SEND child.

Thank you for recommending looking at STEP etc.

The estate planners work with a law firm who are STEP accredited but are not on Legal 500 or Chambers.

A second law firm that I have been in touch with are on Chambers and Partners and The Legal 500. Is it better to go with a firm that is on these? Or is it a bit like university league tables and the detail of what they offer is more important?

And I’m going to check with the estate planners on this point but if I decided to go with them, would be advisable that I work with their solicitors directly, rather that working through the planners? If I use the estate planners, are the instruction to the solicitor coming from them or coming from me? Does it make any material difference if things went a bit wrong down the line?

Might not be relevant to you but there is an active board on money saving expert with regular posters who answer trust questions https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/deaths-funerals-probate

Im slightly suspicious of you being told the original trust document was bad (in what way) and quoted high fees to start again. What made you get free advice on it from an estate planner instead of reverting back to the firm who set up the trust.

The original firm didn’t suggest a vulnerable persons trust as a possibility, even though I said repeatedly my child is disabled and vulnerable. So I think their advice was bad or very limited from the start. But it could be because my family wanted only one trust that included my non-disabled children.

I came to the estate planner from a different route - around the same time they were advertising in my SEN network when DH and I were thinking about setting up a trust, but then my family stepped in with the offer to set it up for us. Shortly after I attended the estate planner’s webinar and I became concerned that the original discretionary trust was not as appropriate as a VPT. The estate planner said their legal team said it wasn’t well written and doesn’t fulfill my aims to protect my child as it hands him all the funds when he reaches age.

I’ve also been in touch with another legal firm that works with a couple of known charities and the fee and package they quoted is similar.

I’m questioning everything though. Just given the large fees at stake I want to get as much advice as possible before I decide to go with one firm or another.

Thank you for the MSE link. I’ll check it out now.

Just to add I attended a webinar from Mencap and Contact and they both recommended VPTs over discretionary trusts.

You mentioned Mencap. Since you've already been in touch with them then you're probably already aware, but they do have a separate trust company that sets up vulnerable beneficiary trusts, for people with a learning disability or autism.

https://www.mencaptrust.org.uk/

Sent you a DM.

Thanks for the advice last year. We’ve been speaking to a number of solicitors. One is personally named in the Legal 500, though with a different firm. (Both firms are named.) Would this be a good reason to choose them
above others?