AVOID THE BIG R.I.P-OFF : Make sure you choose someone capable & honest as your Executors instead of a THIEF or a CROOKED LAWYER

Avoiding crooks after death : Law Society of Scotland solicitors make the worst Executors possible. NOVEMBER, the month of writing wills according to the Law Society of Scotland, whose members are engaged in their annual campaign to persuade their clients and the vast uninformed swathes of the general public to write a will, and, name a lawyer as their executor to ensure a ‘perfect execution of your last wishes’.

However, the ‘perfect execution of your last wishes’ when a client takes the idiotic decision to make their solicitor as their Executor, is very far from perfect for those you leave behind, as the normal pattern which follows is the solicitor acting as your Executor empties your bank accounts & sells your possessions to line their own pockets.

Choose someone better qualified to be your Executor is a claim often bandied about by the legal profession, who, lets face it are there to sell themselves and their services, not do you a favour just for the hell of ensuring what you leave after death is passed onto those you want to leave it to. The list of reasons why you should appoint a professional will be long, incredulous, corrosive, divisive, and in some respects, just plain full of lies to get you to sign up to a dodgy will written in a lawyer’s office, witnessed & signed by one of their own colleagues or secretaries, naming themselves as your Executor. Don't do it. Whatever you do, do NOT choose a solicitor as your Executor.

I am not going to sit here and give you examples of how some dead rich celebrity who thought they were being clever by appointing people close to them along with a ‘professional’ as executors will help you avoid a rip off, because well, it doesn't help. In fact, appointing one of your intended beneficiaries or say, a loved one, along with a solicitor or other professional to act as two Executors of your will, can do even more harm when both begin to battle with each other when, for instance, it is discovered the lawyer decides to help themselves to your money instead of passing it on to your family, The result of such a dual appointment often ends in a negative value of your remaining estate after your oh-so-trustworthy solicitor turns into a shark, intentionally burning up all your remaining assets to fight the other Executor for control of your remaining estate.

Speaking not just as a journalist but also as a victim of the sheer greed of the legal profession & the Law Society of Scotland, simply put, don't appoint a lawyer as your executor. Those you leave behind as beneficiaries will regret it, and I can assure you they will be treated to the horrific Andrew Penman & Norman Howitt experience which happened to my family. You can read all about this here : The Andrew Penman Crooked Lawyer Experience & The Norman Howitt Crooked Accountant Experience

Some basic tips about who to appoint as your Executor and what to say in your will to limit anything which you do not want to happen.

For an Executor, choose someone you feel your family and beneficiaries will trust, or at least they like. In most cases a will is divided up between partners & children or relatives, so choose your remaining partner and one of the children as Executors. If you choose two Executors, at least there are checks & balances on both. Choose someone who will not side with one against the other, or use their position for their own ends to generate huge fees (as a lawyer usually does) for their own work as your Executor.

Now the question of fees.

Within your will, you can easily set financial limits on who should be paid how much to wind up your estate or carry out work as your Executor. This is a good idea to put it down in writing how much, if anything your Executors should be paid. If for instance, your Executors are also beneficiaries, it may well be they do not require payment because they are going to receive the bequest you made them in your will.

At some point, unfortunately, your Executors may require the services of a solicitor or a bank for certain documents regarding your finances but these services should not be strung out for months & years just because a lawyer wants to fatten up his wallet.

To avoid a rip-off if your Executors need to use a solicitor or bank, a good idea is to set strict limits on how much should be paid out of your estate for any legal fees, so you limit how much a lawyer can plunder from your finances. After all, you don't want to leave your money to your solicitor do you, you want to leave it to y our family, right ?

Now, where to store your will.

Obviously you should make several copies of your will. Your Executors should be given copies, or at least told where they can obtain a copy of your will, if, for instance you choose to store it in a safe deposit box at a Bank or with someone who can be trusted.

Often another ruse of the legal profession is to claim they will store your will for free. However, this is simply, a lie. Your solicitor will charge you on a yearly basis for storing your will, property titles and other documents. If they don't you can be sure they will charge for all those years of ‘free storage’ when they come to administer your will, by inflating their fees exponentially.

A case last year which was drawn to my attention of a will, stored for free for ten years, turned out to be not so free when the solicitor charged the estate a whopping TEN THOUSAND POUNDS for ten years of storage. As there was nothing written into the will to say it had been stored for free by the solicitor, the family fought the fee demand but were forced to pay, after an expensive court action. As you see therefore, lawyers have an answer to everything when it comes to money.

Being an Executor is too difficult, it must be done by a lawyer – says the lawyer !

Don't listen to the legal profession about the winding up of an estate being incredibly complicated and the position of an Executor being so frightening it can only be performed by a solicitor. This is all nonsense. There are many people out there each year who manage to navigate the maze of winding up an estate without the need to use a lawyer. Its much cheaper, it usually ends up settled more amicably, honestly and without the five, ten or fifteen years of fuss a lawyer may make of it, just to keep sending in bills for work he never did.

Earlier this year I reported on how the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) had exponged the myth that writing a will meant it was required to appoint a solicitor as an Executor, in an article here : Where There’s A Will There’s A Crook : OFT say choose your will writing service wisely, consider costs, avoid making a solicitor your executor

Here’s what the OFT had to say back in February 2011 :

• Consumers making a will should not be led to believe that appointing a professional executor is essential or the norm.
  

• Consumers should not be encouraged to appoint a professional executor unless it is clearly in their best interests.
  

• Providers should be satisfied, before the will is drafted, that the consumer has the information necessary to make an informed choice. The consumer should understand the options around executor appointments and be aware of the likely basis of charging for the professional executor service.

The OFT reminded consumers there is no requirement in law to appoint a professional executor, although, according to a survey published by the OFT last year, some 43 per cent chose to appoint (usually through ignorance) the same professional will-writer or solicitor who wrote their will.

While the costs for preparing a will can be relatively modest, the costs for a professional executor to administer an estate can be high and vary considerably. For an average estate, consumers can pay between £3,000 and £9,000. Failing to shop around for executor services could be costing UK consumers around £40 million a year, according to OFT estimates.

You can read my earlier coverage about wills here : You and Your Will

An article I wrote in 2009 covered extensive examples of fraud committed by lawyers & Executors against wills : Consumer warning on wills : Don't make your lawyer your executor as soaring cases of 'will fraud' show Law Society closes ranks on complaints

Over the six years of this blog, some readers have come to me asking me to be their Executor. I have refused. It is simply not feasible for me to be an Executor to a hundred wills.

However, in one case recently, the two Executors of a will of a friend came to me for help, as they could not reach an agreement on a particular transaction. I was happy to talk to both, at no cost. There is no cost because I have already been through this experience. After our talk, the two Executors resolved their differences and the property involved in the transaction was sold for a higher value than the suspiciously lower value presented to them by a solicitor. The family received what had been left to them without further worry.

Lets call it, free mediation, backed up by the possibility if the two Executors had not resolved their difficulties, headlines would have ensured they did, as my primary concern was of course for the remaining family as beneficiaries who had been put in the unenviable position where one Executor had been poisoned by a crooked lawyer out to buy up what he hoped would be a cheap house. It felt good to protect another family from a lawyer led rip-off and it doesn't cost anything to prevent a fraud, really. It was a service, and a duty, to a friend. I would encourage others to do the same.

Incidentally, some people might wonder why the not-so-merry month of November is designated as a good month by the legal profession to run will writing campaigns. Well simply, as one solicitor told me, its because old people tend to die off in the winter, or there are more fatal accidents during the winter. Lovely people aren’t they .. the legal profession who come up with all this kind of stuff. If you take my advice you will steer clear of them when writing up your will. They are not in it for you, they are in it for themselves, and when it all goes wrong, the Law Society of Scotland and the equally prejudiced complainer-hating Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC) will be of no use to you at all.

One of the most important things you need to remember is, where there is a will, there is a crooked lawyer from the Law Society of Scotland. So, when you come to write your will, don't appoint a THIEF or a CROOKED LAWYER (or as someone recently asked me A BANK) as your sole Executor. Those who you leave behind don't need to live through yet another horror story after having to get through your death. A free guide from Citizens Advice Scotland on Will writing is HERE although I must admit there is a lot of rubbish in the guide such as naming solicitors & banks as executors which is just a complete no-no in the 21st Century. Just make sure you miss out any of the parts which suggest you need to appoint a solicitor to do this or that, at horrendous cost to your estate and your remaining family.

If you want to discuss with others, issues about wills and problems in writing wills or problems with Executors, I would encourage you to visit the Consumer Action Group forums and participate. If there is an issue or a problem with a will in Scotland involving crooked Executors or crooked lawyers which you feel should be published, please contact me via scottishlawreporters@gmail.com

The Crooked & The Crooked : Scottish solicitors claim banks & financial services ‘are historically too crooked’ to own Scots law firms

Banks are too crooked to own law firms, FSA is rubbish at regulation, say Scottish Law Agents Society. BIZARRE CLAIMS that High Street Banks and other ‘Financial Service Providers’ are TOO CROOKED to hold majority ownership in equally crooked Scottish law firms have emerged today in a response from the Scottish Law Agents Society to a Scottish Government consultation on proposed changes to the ownership of law firms as laid down in the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010, passed last year by the Scottish Parliament only after a raft of changes & amendments had been ordered by the Law Society to water down the Scottish Government’s initial proposals to expand Scotland’s closed shop legal industry.

The Scottish Government consultation on which categories of regulated professionals other than solicitors should qualify to meet the 51% ownership requirement in the Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 has caused fierce bickering within the Scottish legal profession over their decades old control of Scotland notorious closed shop solicitor dominated legal profession where members of the public who require access to justice or the courts are forced to go solicitors who are members of the Law Society of Scotland.

Today, amid the fears of lawyers the financial industry will come into Scotland’s legal profession and scoop up law firms, or even open their own and bring much needed competition into the legal services marketplace where solicitors have got used to charging sky high fees for doing very little work on behalf of their clients, the Scottish Law Agents Society issued a series of damning accusations against the financial services sector, essentially claiming financial services providers are historically too corrupt to own a majority stake in a Scottish law firm.

In a response to the Scottish Government consultation, the Scottish Law Agents Society claimed : “The financial services industry over the last 30 years does not inspire confidence in the professional standards in the industry. There have been widespread scandals with the mis-selling of endowment policies, personal pension plans, home income plans, precipice bonds and other structured investment products. Currently there is a further scandal with the mis-selling of payment protection insurance.”

The same is true of the legal profession in Scotland. Solicitors have spent decades mis-selling legal services to clients who end up paying extortionate fees for useless and often unsuccessful litigation.

The response from SLAS continued : “The key to each of these scandals is the selling of the products. Notwithstanding the veneer of professionalism the old adage that financial products are sold and not bought remains true. The whole culture of financial services remains one of sales rather than the provision of professional services where the professional puts the interests of the client ahead of his own interests. The regulatory scheme which has applied since the Financial Services Act 1986 has done little to curb this culture.”

While it is true regulation may well have done little to curb bad practice in the financial services sector, it is equally true regulation in the legal services sector, provided in Scotland by the Law Society of Scotland, Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, Scottish Solicitors Discipline Tribunal & last but not least, the Faculty of Advocates, has collectively done little or nothing to curb the incessant corruption, client rip offs, negligence, dishonesty and bad service which continues to plague Scotland’s legal services sector today.

The statement from SLAS also attacked the Financial Services Authority, claiming : “The present regulator of financial services is the FSA and, despite its wide ranging powers, the provisions of the Legal Services (S) Act 2010 with tests of fit to own and fit to manage are not sufficiently robust to allow us to have confidence that the public would be protected from a sales culture approach which could lead to the mis-selling of legal services.”

It should be noted the response from the Scottish Law Agents Society fail to contain any references to many Scots law firms who are themselves caught up in similar scandals of mis-selling of mortgages & financial products and even legal services to clients who are then forced to lodge complaints with the Law Society of Scotland and Scottish Legal Complaints Commission. Unsurprisingly the Law Society & SLCC are reported to be ignoring such complaints.

While SLAS went onto cover themselves by stating : “It would degrade significantly the intended benefits of the Act and indeed the rationale for liberalising the provision of legal services if regulated professions were restricted only to those of Solicitor and Accountant”. Although it would require approved regulators to evolve and enforce robust “fitness for involvement” tests, it would be inconsistent with the purpose of the Act to deny the opportunity to participate in the provision of legal services to other regulated professionals.” the response indicated they would be happy to form “associations between solicitors and surveyors or indeed any regulated profession as defined in Article 3 of European Directive 2005/36 with one exception“, that exception being the Financial Services Industry.

I am not surprised solicitors are happy to form associations with the likes of surveyors.

Law firms forming associations with surveyors is something I’ve seen first hand in Edinburgh and particularly in the Scottish Borders, usually ending up in a very corrupt arrangement where surveyors dish out fraudulent valuations to house buyers or sellers or solicitors on behalf of executry estates of deceased clients, resulting in one particular case I remember where a single solicitor ended up owning twelve properties, some purchased through middle men after it took years to sell particular properties of deceased clients which ended up being sold in some cases for a quarter of their value during the property value boom between 2000 – 2008.

The response from the Scottish Law Agents Society also came down hard on will writers & confirmation agents, stating : “Will Writers and Confirmation Agents are not professionals. At present they require no proper education and training. The qualifications needed to do that work properly requires the same training that solicitors receive. A full training in and understanding of the law on all aspects of property law, succession, taxation etc, are required to offer proper advice. It is obvious that no one should offer services in Will writing and Confirmation without current practising solicitors trained in that area.”

SLAS continued : “Furthermore we note that there are no adequate mechanisms for consumer complaints to be made and investigated free of cost to the consumer and no evidence of adequate professional standards or disciplinary procedures. There is evidence of widespread consumer detriment in the quality of services provided and in the marketing practices of will writers.”

Clearly standards must be kept, but with the ever increasing amount of fraud by solicitors against executries & wills in Scotland, reaching into the tens of millions of pounds each year or by some estimates much more, I hardly think trusting regulation of the legal services market to the likes of the Law Society of Scotland and the remains of the current self-regulation of solicitors gang, including the SLCC, will do anything to improve regulation, increase public confidence or increase consumer protection in Scotland’s best-to-be-avoided legal services marketplace, even after terms of the much-watered-down Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 takes hold.

The Scottish Government were asked to comment on the SLAS response and their accusations against the Financial sector. A spokesman for the Scottish Government said: "The Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 will modernise the Scottish legal profession, and will offer firms of every size the flexibility to adopt a business model that works for them and their clients. It will give Scottish firms greater opportunities, within a robust regulatory system, to expand and compete effectively, both within and outwith Scotland.”

"The consultation in question sought views on those who should be permitted to own a majority or controlling share in the new licensed legal services providers. All responses will be analysed and considered along with other evidence before a decision is taken. A report on the consultation will be prepared in due course, and will be available on the Scottish Government website.”

We are therefore left to ask ourselves as consumers of legal services, are banks & financial services providers too crooked to own outright a law firm, or is it just these law firms are themselves too crooked to want anyone else to own them or compete in their markets ?

Judge for yourselves on the evidence aplenty already reported on Diary of Injustice, although you may be forgiven for coming to the conclusion neither of the professions can really be trusted with our financial or our legal & justice needs.

Where There’s A Will There’s A Crook : OFT say choose your will writing service wisely, consider costs, avoid making a solicitor your executor

Surveys reveal consumers frequently make poor choices in will writers & executors. EVERY ONE of us should ensure our assets & financial affairs are put in order after we die, however the dangers of writing a will with an unscrupulous professional such as a crooked lawyer or an overcharging bank are well known to many families & relatives across Scotland who, after the death of their loved ones, have ended up being forced to deal with complicated complaints procedures put in place by biased self regulators such as the Law Society of Scotland or some rather dubious Ombudsman with little or no powers to put right the inevitable financial disaster for the beneficiaries, while the solicitor or bank pockets the remains of the will.

OFT say consumers should not be led to appoint a professional solicitor as an executor. Today, the will writing services of the banks has come under wider public scrutiny as the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) announced the big four banks, Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group & Royal Bank of Scotland have all voluntarily agreed to review and, where necessary, improve the way they sell will-writing and executor services. The move follows discussions with the OFT during 2010 as part of a wider effort to improve the will-writing market for customers and their beneficiaries, following concerns that some (well, most) consumers are appointing professional executors without fully understanding the likely costs and the alternative options.

The OFT’s announcement states the big four banks have agreed to meet three key principles, to ensure customers are able to make well-informed decisions.

• Consumers making a will should not be led to believe that appointing a professional executor is essential or the norm.
  
• Consumers should not be encouraged to appoint a professional executor unless it is clearly in their best interests.
  
• Providers should be satisfied, before the will is drafted, that the consumer has the information necessary to make an informed choice. The consumer should understand the options around executor appointments and be aware of the likely basis of charging for the professional executor service.

The OFT reported all four banks are currently reviewing their product literature and processes and any necessary changes should be in place within six months at the latest. Barclays Bank, HSBC, Lloyds Banking Group and RBS Group are the only banks that currently offer will-writing and executor services, however consumers may not always be aware that each bank outsources the preparation of wills to external solicitors, although the bank provides the executor service itself.

While the OFT survey applies only to will writing services of banks, services which are used perhaps more so in England & Wales than in Scotland, many Scots consumers who are thinking of writing a will usually end up blindly walking into a solicitors office somewhere in the country, with absolutely no knowledge of what to expect from their solicitor or bank in terms of what kinds of services are offered, how much a will could cost to be implemented after death, and what action could be taken by beneficiaries if there is poor or negligent handling of a will by the executor, the bank, the solicitor or the will writer who drew up the will in the first place.

If the lack of information on costs of handling a will and how to put things right if its handled badly isn't confusing enough, the serious question of who to appoint as executor is often handled poorly by consumers, who, almost unbelievably in 2011, end up appointing the same solicitor who writes the will, which is almost like giving a blank cheque to a house burglar who will more often than not charge as much as they can for handling a will after death, to the point in some cases, there is no money left for anyone except themselves.

The OFT today reminded consumers there is no requirement in law to appoint a professional executor, although, according to a survey published by the OFT last year, some 43 per cent chose to appoint (usually through ignorance) the same professional will-writer or solicitor who wrote their will.

While the costs for preparing a will can be relatively modest, the costs for a professional executor to administer an estate can be high and vary considerably. For an average estate, consumers can pay between £3,000 and £9,000. Failing to shop around for executor services could be costing UK consumers around £40 million a year, according to OFT estimates.

David Stallibrass, Director in the OFT Services and Public Markets Group, said: “The wrong decision when appointing executors could mean a potentially expensive professional service is chosen, when a family member or friend may be quite capable of handling the task either alone or with professional support. We are pleased that each of the banks has agreed to review its selling practices and marketing literature to ensure customers are getting the information they need to make informed choices.”

When a will is prepared, thought will usually be given to who is legally responsible for administering the estate according to the provisions set out in the will. When appointed under a will, these persons are known as 'executors'. Lay executors - such as friends or family members - can be appointed instead of appointing a solicitor who can end up charging what they like for administering the provisions set out in the will.

The alternative is that consumers can employ a professional executor, who will administer the estate in return for a significant fee - often a sizeable percentage of the value of the estate or possibly even the entire estate if the actions of some solicitors are taken into account. Any consumer ignorant enough to appoint such a person who is covered by their profession’s self regulator may end up appointing the same person or firm who wrote the will such as a solicitor. Bad decision in nine out of ten cases.

Speaking from a personal perspective as a victim of the legal profession over a will rip off, if you do end up appointing a solicitor as your executor, you may well end up with an Andrew Penman, or a Norman Howitt which means you are basically giving all your money, property, possessions etc over to a lawyer so they can enjoy it. Bad decision.

Don't do it. Don't fall into the trap of trusting the person behind a desk in a lawyers office just because they sit in an office and give the appearance they can be trusted. The experience of many people each year in Scotland indicates when it comes to wills and solicitors, the phrase “Where there’s a will, there’s a crook“ has considerable weight.

Case after case has proved the Law Society & SLCC take no action against lawyers who rip off wills & bereaved families. Do you really want to put your remaining family, friends or loved ones through the nightmare of dealing with a crooked lawyer, crooked law firm, or even worse, having to go through the self protecting Law Society of Scotland or the anti-client Scottish Legal Complaints Commission ? Take my advice, avoid it all and make sure you never appoint someone such as a solicitor or an accountant as your executor, certainly not in Scotland, because there are absolutely no safeguards to poor, negligent or even the criminal handling of wills by Scottish solicitors.

Given the significant degree of negligence or even criminality in the handling of wills in Scotland, it is long past time for a review of will writing services offered by the legal profession, and wider public education of the real costs & hidden dangers of who you as consumers allow to write & implement your final wishes.

However, any such review of the disgraceful state of will services offered by the Scottish legal profession may well have to come from south of the border because most political parties in Scotland realise its just too much of a cash cow for their friends & donors in the legal profession, a cash cow for lawyers which is guarded to the death …

My previous coverage on the subject of wills, will writers, and the crooked lawyers who handle wills can be found here : Where there's a Will, there's always a crook, a crooked lawyer & a crooked self regulator

Former lawyer jailed for stealing clients £130K returns to run will-writing business as Law Society protects its own will rip-off solicitors

Law Society refused to confirm whether victims of Valerie MacAdam had been repaid. A SOLICITOR who was jailed for three years in 2008 at Edinburgh Sheriff Court after being found guilty of embezzling £130,000 of client funds has returned to Scotland’s legal services marketplace with a will writing business, according to an investigation carried out by the Sunday Mail newspaper.

Valerie Macadam, now Valerie Penny has been identified as running the “wills at home” website, which states : “A new service is available! After a successful career as a lawyer, Valerie Penny lectured in law for several years. She then moved to the traditional Craft Town of West Kilbride six months ago having married local man, David Penny. She has now established a new business that will be of use to the whole community.”

The website goes onto state : “The firm also offers preparation of documents in the comfort of clients own homes or another convenient place of their choosing. This is much more relaxed and personal, but no less professional than the service conventionally provided in an office environment. Clients are ensured not only confidentiality, but also safe keeping of deeds as documents are retained in a secure document safe.”

There is no mention on the wills at home website of Ms Penny's colourful history as a lawyer, nor are clients alerted to her conviction & three year jail sentence, which the Journalonline reported “was reduced from four years for an early guilty plea. Macadam took money from the bank accounts of clients and life savings of others as she handled their wills, stealing from five clients in total over a period of six years. Macadam had been banned from practising as a solicitor in 2004 following a Law Society of Scotland investigation.

Philip Yelland, the Law Society of Scotland’s Director of Regulation for over 20 years. Philip Yelland, the Law Society of Scotland’s director of standards, said: “The Law Society of Scotland acted to protect the firm’s clients and Ms Macadam has not been able to practise as a solicitor in Scotland since 2004. Solicitors are trusted to handle millions of pounds of client funds each year. Honesty and integrity are absolutely paramount within the solicitors' profession. Those who are suspected of stealing from clients will be investigated and, if they are found to be acting dishonestly or fraudulently, strong action will be taken against them, both by the Society and the courts.”

What a lot of rubbish Mr Yelland. You may as well have sent all her clients off to Andrew Penman at Stormonth Darling in Kelso to be fleeced again.

I covered Valerie Macadam’s conviction and side issues relating to solicitors ripping off clients for double fees in an article during late 2008, here : Lawyers stealing from clients to earn 'double fees' while Law Society looks the other way in vast network of legal aid fraud & embezzlement

The report from the Sunday Mail follows, although I feel I should emphasise some points to my own readers. The lawyer quoted in the Sunday Mail’s story, Bruce de Wert, who is an “Honorary Sheriff” and runs a will writing business (Scottwills) along with a divorce business (MyScottishDivorce) states : "When you deal with a solicitor, you will normally find they also offer a will storage service - usually for free. But the difference is solicitors are heavily regulated and, in the event they were to retire or go out of business, the Law Society ensures these wills are properly passed on to another solicitor."

Many solicitors actually charge for holding wills & documents. I know this to be the case as I’ve had fee notes for this service. I have also had numerous readers come to me with examples of similar fee notes, with some solicitors occasionally refusing to hand over documents they are holding for clients until very dubious & usually very high charges and fee demands are paid.

The part about solicitors being heavily regulated is of course irrelevant because as we all know, solicitors are ineffectually regulated by the Law Society of Scotland & Scottish Legal Complaints Commission, and that is why I have seen & reported on hundreds of cases of will fraud by solicitors over many years. If solicitors were so well regulated, I wouldn't be able to write about such cases, and of course, if solicitors were so well regulated, there wouldn't be so many Andrew Penmans out there doing much the same as those featuring in headline after headline after headline.

Personally of course, I don't believe anyone should make tens of thousands of pounds out of a family member passing on their final wishes to their family or whoever they choose to leave their wealth.

After being dragged through the Law Society’s sinister complaints practices, and having a solicitor and an accountant basically put a gun to my family’s head, hound us for years, harass us, follow us, threaten us, make our lives a misery while they both got away with it, I am of course bound to say this, but I say it because I don't want anyone else to go through it, so be careful who you trust your will to, and indeed for that, all your legal interests and remember, there are just as many criminals still inside the Scottish legal profession who will ruin your will & your legal interests, as those outside who might not be telling their clients all they need to hear.

For those readers concerned about their wills and other documents being held by their solicitors, I have written articles which readers might be interested in HERE

The regulation of will writers has entered into law as part of the Scottish Government’s Legal Services (Scotland) Act 2010 (pdf) Chapter Two specifically referring to regulation, and it may come as no surprise to all, the Law Society of Scotland is in the frame to regulate non-lawyer will writers, as I featured earlier, here : Scottish Government plan to regulate non-lawyer 'will writers' may see Law Society regulate all complaints against mishandled wills, legal business

I recently covered the subject of will writers, lawyer & non-lawyer, and their lack of effective regulation, here : R.I.P. OFF : Lack of independent regulation reveals solicitors, accountants & will writers should not be trusted on wills, final wishes & bequests

Now over to the Sunday Mail :

Shamed lawyer who robbed clients out of jail and back in business

Nov 28 2010 Exclusive by Russell Findlay and Lauren Crooks, Sunday Mail

A CROOKED lawyer jailed for stealing money from dead clients is back in business, we can reveal.

Valerie Penny, 54, runs a slick website to lure customers into handing over £80 for wills. She is selling the same legal services she used to steal £130,000 from clients and their estates - a catalogue of dishonesty that landed her in prison.

The struck-off solicitor, who was called Macadam before her marriage, boasts of her "successful career". But she makes no mention of her jail time for robbing clients' cash or her shocking record of professional misconduct.

Last week Sunday Mail investigators caught her back in action touting wills and other legal services.

US-born Penny, who has practised law in Scotland and New York, was jailed for three years in December 2008 for stealing £130,000 from clients, some of whom were dead. She seized control of their finances through "power of attorney", then syphoned their life savings over a six-year period. She specialised in conveyancing and wills at her law firm in Edinburgh's posh Charlotte Square before her crime spree was uncovered.

After being freed from Cornton Vale prison in June, Penny launched Wills at Home from her house in West Kilbride, Ayrshire. She and second husband David, 50, a nuclear power station security guard, sell wills and power of attorney documents through online ads.

Her website states: "After a successful career as a lawyer, Valerie Penny lectured in law for several years. "North Ayrshire is the first area in Scotland to have the benefit of Wills at Home but Valerie plans to extend the service throughout the country quickly."

Last week Penny and her husband met our reporters - posing as a couple - at a Kilmarnock hotel and offered two wills for £120. After making and printing the first will, she said: "Now do you have somewhere fireproof to keep the wills? No, well, we have a safe. We can keep them there if you're happy for us to do that. It's what normally happens."

She handed a copy of one will to our team but forgot to print the second. She promised: "I'll send it to you. Are you wanting to pay cash? If we're holding the deeds, there's a small extra charge of £15 per deed. But if you're paying cash, we can make it £140 instead of £150."

The Scottish Government are set to pass a new law to tackle the unregulated will industry.

Lawyer Bruce de Wert, a wills expert based in Wick, was stunned at our revelations about Penny. He said: "I am distressed to hear a convicted embezzler is offering a will-making and storage service.

"I can't imagine anyone who knew her background would accept her service. Apart from the obvious concerns of dealing with a criminal, I do worry that the wills she has produced may never be found.

"When you deal with a solicitor, you will normally find they also offer a will storage service - usually for free. But the difference is solicitors are heavily regulated and, in the event they were to retire or go out of business, the Law Society ensures these wills are properly passed on to another solicitor."

Penny first appeared in front of the Scottish Solicitors' Discipline Tribunal in 2003, which found her guilty of a catalogue of misconduct but failed to strike her off. Two years later she was finally kicked out of the profession for another long litany of misconduct.

The SSDT found Penny "deliberately and fraudulently" forged a signature on a document relating to a dead client's will and acted in a "dishonest fashion by misleading" another client. They also said she embezzled client funds in a "calculated and devious scheme".

Penny's entry on the LinkedIn website for professionals had claimed she worked for global financial giant Bank of New York Mellon between November 2008 and May this year. But she was behind bars during that time. The dates were later changed to when she did work for the bank - from May to December 2008, when she was fired. A bank spokesman said: "As soon as we discovered her conviction, we terminated her employment."

At Edinburgh Sheriff Court, Penny accused her first husband, lawyer David Macadam, 54, of driving her to embezzlement by his "bullying". He was also rapped for misconduct by the SSDT in 2004. They ordered that he could only work as a lawyer under supervision for a five-year period.

When confronted last week, Penny said: "This will destroy me. The dates on LinkedIn are a mistake." She then told her husband to snatch the will from our reporter's hands.

R.I.P. OFF : Lack of independent regulation reveals solicitors, accountants & will writers should not be trusted on wills, final wishes & bequests

Will fraud by solicitors, will-writers & accountants prove many professions cannot be trusted with consumers final wishes. A CONCERTED CAMPAIGN by solicitors & other financial professionals to retain market dominance in the multi billion pound will writing & will handling business in the UK has been brought back into focus in the past two weeks after allegations were made by solicitors against ‘cowboy’ will-writing private companies offering the same poor, often extortionately costing & woefully under regulated services for will-writing & will handling as many people have already experienced from the legal profession, who currently dominate the will writing & will handling market.

Put simply, solicitors, accountants, will-writers and all their colleagues who are in the will writing & will handling business, should not be trusted by members of the public to handle wills, final wishes & bequests. All are as bad as each other, and all are as poorly regulated as each other. Not one to mend another – trust one over the other, and you are sure to be ripped off, either by the solicitor, the accountant, the bank, or the will-writer.

Sure, there are many professional bodies who openly & publicly guarantee their so-called professional members will never rip off your will, will never rip off your remaining family, will never ruin your final wishes & take what you leave behind for themselves, but the sad truth is all these guarantees are hollow, as hollow as a rotted tree with no innards. I covered this issue in more detail in November 2009, here : Consumer warning on wills : Don't make your lawyer your executor as soaring cases of 'will fraud' show Law Society closes ranks on complaints

Ripping off the dead - Guarantees from the Law Society of Scotland of professionalism of their solicitors on handling wills are worthless as the media reports time & again. Trust a lawyer to handle your will, and you may well get one of the many Andrew Penmans running around, more of which you can read about here : Solicitors who rip off dead clients : How Borders solicitor Andrew Penman ruined an executry estate Trust an accountant as your executor, and you may well get one of the many Norman Howitts running around, more of which you can read about here : Accountants who rip off wills & abuse their positions as Executors : How Borders accountant Norman Howitt ruined a will and a family

Last week, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners - the international professional body for workers in the trust industry and the (often overlapping) field of estate administration whose members are mainly solicitors, barristers, attorneys, accountants, trust officers and trust administrators as well as banking and insurance professionals in the trust field, issued a press release claiming that a Survey Reveals Incompetence and Dishonesty of “Cowboy” Will Writers. The Press Release from STEP, bearing in mind their membership includes solicitors, accountants & bankers, reads as follows :

Interim results from a survey published today by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP), reveal the scale of the threat posed to the consumer from cowboys in the will writing market. The survey found that 75% of STEP members have encountered cases of “incompetence or dishonesty in the will writing market in the last 12 months”, and prompted STEP to again call for better consumer protection. Two thirds of respondents reported coming across hidden fees which were not outlined in the stated price for a will, and 63% had direct experience of cases where will writing companies had gone out of business and disappeared with their clients’ wills. Just over one third had encountered cases where incompetence had led to significant additional tax bills.

Chief Executive David Harvey said: “This research shows how widespread cowboy will writers have become and it is clear those who charge a fee for writing a will should now be regulated. They must have an appropriate qualification, and they must have proper indemnity insurance. Soon the consumer will be protected by new regulation in Scotland and this benefit needs to be extended to cover the rest of the UK."

Examples of malpractice included a company which approached young mothers in shopping malls, telling them their children would be taken into care after they died if they failed to make a will. One consumer was charged £12,000 up-front for executor services only for their family to find the firm involved had gone out of business not long after, disappearing with their wills and money. In June the Legal Services Board launched a review of the threat posed to consumers in England & Wales by unprofessional will writers and is currently seeking evidence of consumer harm. The Scottish Parliament is currently going through the process of regulating non-lawyer will writers through the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill.

Certainly an interesting Press Release from STEP, but it hardly tells the real story of what is going on in the UK will industry, where solicitors dominate the market. Notably, STEP use an example where one consumer was charged £12,000 up-front for executor services yet the Scottish legal profession can beat that hands down, where, to quote one example, Edinburgh law firm Turcan Connell charged fees of more than £16,000 to administer an estate with net assets of under £14,000 – and the Law Society then rejected a complaint from the deceased client’s widow, Dr Kate Forrest.

The Herald newspaper reported : “[Dr] Forrest complained that the firm had told her only that it would charge £200 an hour, had entered into unnecessary work, and had failed to give her estimates, or issue itemised bills, despite repeated requests. She claims the firm then gave an undertaking to halt the charges, in a meeting with witnesses at the firm's office, but this did not materialise. When the Law Society examined the complaint, it ruled that the meeting could not be taken into account as the firm had no record of it, and it accepted an explanation by managing partner Douglas Connell that the complaint had been based entirely on a "misunderstanding". The £16,000 in charges had the effect of more than wiping out any assets in the estate, which had gross assets of £69,574 but debts of £55,731.”

Hardly a glowing recommendation for regulation by the Law Society of Scotland of solicitors handling wills, rather it proves deceased clients will be ripped off by any professional, with no recourse for their remaining family while the solicitor gets away with it – the perfect, ultimate, R.I.P. OFF.

BBC Panorama report into corruption in the will writing industry omitted problems of solicitors ripping off dead clients. Coincidentally, the BBC’s Panorama programme ran a report on the wills industry, highlighting various rip offs by will-writing companies. The programme bizarrely implied while will-writing companies were quite obviously ripping off consumers to the tune of thousands of pounds, the situation was very different if a solicitor handled a will – something many victims of solicitors mishandling wills all across the UK could easily dispute. Curiously the BBC Panorama programme on this issue is now no longer available, although readers can still view a summarised text version of the report carried out by Panorama journalist Vivian White, here : Call for tighter will-writing laws as consumers duped

The new regulation in Scotland which STEP are referring to in their Press Release, relates to amendments contained in the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill, which may well end up seeing the Law Society of Scotland regulate non-lawyer will writers. I reporter on the Scottish plans for regulation of non-lawyer will writers, here : Scottish Government plan to regulate non-lawyer 'will writers' may see Law Society regulate all complaints against mishandled wills, legal business

Consumers should be in no doubt the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill is turning into one of the biggest rip offs of consumer choice of legal services in Scotland, a far cry from the intentions of the Which? super complaint and the Office of Fair Trading’s report into lawyers dominance of Scotland’s legal services marketplace.

Since the Law Society of Scotland (dubbed by some as the 'World's worst regulator') cant even regulate their own member solicitors when it comes to defrauding deceased clients, wills, executry estates & beneficiaries, I doubt the Law Society is going to be very effective in regulating anyone else who is involved in the rip off will writing & handling industry, unless of course, the Law Society simply use their regulatory powers as an excuse to wipe out the competition, ensuring everyone has to use a lawyer to write or handle a will.

This advice may be hard to swallow, but take it from one who has witnessed, investigated and been a victim of solicitors ripping off the dead – trust no lawyer, accountant, will writer, or any other so-called professional when it comes to your will & final testament, and never appoint one as your executor … its the sure fire road to perdition ….

Scottish Government plan to regulate non-lawyer 'will writers' may see Law Society regulate all complaints against mishandled wills, legal business

Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing announces regulation for non-lawyer will writers. FERGUS EWING, the Scottish Government’s Community Safety Minister standing in for the Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill announced the latest round of amendments to the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill which include the regulation of non-lawyer will writers in Scotland, some of whom have been targeting people with the same sharp practices so often employed by solicitors & law firms who, as the complaints statistics reflect, still represent the greatest threat to deceased clients wills & executry estates.

However, there is a deadly twist in the plans announced by the Scottish Government, which may well end up ensuring any non-lawyer will writing services and indeed any new entrants to Scotland’s legal services market, are regulated by the Law Society of Scotland, as no other regulatory bodies have indicated they intend apply to Scottish Ministers to be ‘approved regulators’ for the expanded legal services market which the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill is designed to reform, aiming to bringing wider access to justice for Scots consumers of legal services, many of which are currently available through solicitor members of the Law Society of Scotland.

Accountants regulator ICAS had intended to apply as an ‘approved regulator’ although the Law Society are now viewed as the ‘favoured applicant’ by Scottish Ministers. Initially the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland (ICAS) had announced they were considering making a bid to become an ‘approved’ regulator in the reformed legal services market, however ICAS have not updated their position on the issue, and with the dithering, anti-client Scottish Legal Complaints Commission also undecided about whether it will apply to the Scottish Government as an ‘approved regulator’ of legal services, the only contender for regulating any new entrants to Scotland’s currently solicitor only legal services sector is the Law Society itself, leaving the possibility the infamous solicitor’s self regulator may well use its dominant position to force out new entrants to the legal services market it may see as competition to its own solicitor members.

As I am in favour of regulating non-lawyer will writers, I have no huge problems with the Scottish Government’s proposals, however the fact nothing has been done to protect the public from the Law Society of Scotland’s poor regulation of solicitors & law firms who in many cases, deliberately mishandle a deceased client’s estate simply to ramp up their own firm’s profits & personal finance deals with some of the major High Street banks on the back of assets of deceased clients, means there is still effectively no protection for Scots consumers when it comes to wills & executries.

Allowing the Law Society to regulate the entire wills & executries sector where the Law Society has already proved it cannot regulate its own member’s conduct on handling wills & the assets of deceased clients, will not improve consumer protection nor help reduce the huge amount of will fraud in Scotland, whether such frauds are committed by lawyers, or non-lawyers.

Law Society of Scotland covers up too many complaints against wills & executry estates to protect rogue lawyers. It all comes down to poor regulation, and with estimates of solicitors siphoning off tens of millions of pounds a year from wills & executry estates in Scotland, and getting away with it because the Law Society continually whitewashes complaints made by families, beneficiaries and sometimes even charities, then until a fully independent regulator is created to ensure complaints against all legal services, including particularly wills & executries, the mere window dressing for one part of the industry, while leaving the lion’s share of will handling to the even worse regulated legal profession, will do nothing to protect members of the public and their bequests to families & friends etc …

The Scottish Government’s proposals, announced earlier this week by Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing are as follows : Legal Services Bill to regulate non-lawyer will writers with the actual amendments lodged at the Scottish Parliament : Amendments to Legal Services Bill : non-lawyer will writers (pdf)

Scottish Government announcement on non-lawyer will writer regulation. The proposed amendment to the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill follows a consultation process, and would apply a set of regulatory rules, enforcement measures and sanctions to ensure non-lawyer will writers conform to acceptable industry practice. It will bring to an end an era where consumers have been vulnerable to non-regulated practices which are often unnecessarily expensive (the same couldn’t happen in a solicitor’s office, of course …)

One example of this was when an elderly client was charged £1,000 for a straightforward will in a non inheritance tax estate. That client was driven to her bank by the will writer to withdraw the money in cash to pay the fee. In another case, consumers wanting a will have been sold specialised services they do not require. In some cases they are being persuaded to pay up to £2,400 when a simple will costing £150 would suffice. (similar stories have been told where solicitors have done the same to their clients …)

Community Safety Minister Fergus Ewing said: "That is why we intend to regulate non-lawyer will writers. Yesterday, I lodged amendments to the Legal Services (Scotland) Bill to provide for such regulation. A number of persons and organisations have made representations to us about non-lawyer will writers, providing examples of poor practice. These include lack of skill and competence; "cold calling"; and advice based on English law. We are very concerned that some non-lawyer will writers may be exploiting the lack of regulation to the detriment of the consumer in Scotland.”

"The regulation will continue to allow non-lawyers to provide a will writing service, but will protect consumers by ensuring that such will writers are subject to robust regulatory rules, enforcement measures and sanctions. However, we will not regulate individuals preparing their own will, with or without a DIY pack, including "deathbed" wills, or other persons providing a free advice service."

The Scottish Government consultation on the regulation of non-lawyer will writers took place between December 18, 2009 and February 19, 2010. The consultation paper sought views on the possible regulation of non-lawyer will writers in Scotland. The Legal Services (Scotland) Bill ("the Bill"), which was introduced in the Scottish Parliament on September 30, 2009, provides a legislative vehicle to provide for regulation of non-lawyer will writer services in Scotland. Following representations made to it, the Scottish Government is concerned that some non-lawyer will writers may be exploiting the lack of regulation to the detriment of the consumer in Scotland.

As well as individual instances of poor practice, it is possible to identify some main themes, including the following:

* Lack of skill and competence * Poor knowledge of inheritance tax * Advice based on English law * Low advertised costs translating into substantial fees through bait and switch and tying in of other services * Cold calling and unsolicited mail * Lack of professional indemnity insurance * Poor storage of wills

The consultation responses indicated that there is almost overwhelming support for regulation of non-lawyer will writers amongst the respondents. Indeed, 45 out of the 48 respondents are in favour of such regulation. As to the method of regulation, the vast majority of respondents are in favour of using the same model as outlined in Part 3 of the Bill. The regulation will continue to allow non-lawyers to provide a will writing service, but, at the same time, will protect consumers, by providing a set of regulatory rules, enforcement measures and sanctions that would apply to such non-lawyers. It is not the aim to regulate individuals preparing their own will, with or without a DIY pack, including "deathbed" wills, or other persons providing a free advice service.

Michael Clancy, the Law Society’s Director of ‘Law Reform’. Michael Clancy of the Law Society unsurprisingly supported the Scottish Government’s plans to regulate non-lawyer will writers, as the plans had come about from orders representations made by the Law Society of Scotland to Scottish Ministers, where the society clearly wishes to retain it’s regulatory role & power over all entrants to Scotland’s legal services market. Mr Clancy said : “We’re very pleased that the Scottish Government has taken on board the representations made by the Society and others about the regulation of will writers. We firmly believe that non-lawyer will writers who provide a service for a fee should be regulated to ensure that members of the public are protected and can be sure that they are getting good advice at a reasonable cost.”

Since members of the public are currently not protected from solicitors mishandling wills, nor are clients getting good advice from solicitors at reasonable costs, how would allowing the Law Society to regulate non-lawyers improve consumer protection ? The answer is clearly it wouldn't, but it would of course, maintain the Law Society’s power base and hold over the Scottish legal services market, which the Law Society is clearly intent on holding onto, at whatever cost.

As far as the individual instances of poor practice listed by the Scottish Government in their press release are concerned, most or all of the instances quoted in reference to non-lawyer will writers also apply to the services of a solicitor, which begs the question why the Scottish Government are content for the Law Society of Scotland to poorly regulate thousands of complaints about solicitors mishandling wills & estates, while introducing new regulation to oversee non-lawyer will writers.

Lack of skill & competence - which many solicitors seem to suffer from when they are found out after robbing a deceased’s estate of a few hundred thousand pounds for their own personal benefit. Indeed, lack of skill & competence is one of the favourite excuses for the Law Society of Scotland to cover such cases up, with a slap on the wrist for the solicitor concerned, and off he goes to work once again to ruin someone else’s will .. and again, and again, and again …

Poor knowledge of inheritance tax – again, another rampant issue in the legal profession, and speaking from experience in the case of Borders solicitor Andrew Penman, of Stormonth Darling solicitors Kelso, who ignored up to eleven letters from the Inland Revenue on inheritance tax, prompting the Inland Revenue to contact me directly, well … what more needs to be said ?

Low advertised costs translating into substantial fees through bait and switch and tying in of other services –The same happens in a solicitors office when it comes to dealing with a will. Just watch how quickly huge overdraft accounts are opened on a deceased’s client’s estate with the solicitor’s bank, gaining the solicitor cheap personal finance deals using the deceased’s client’s assets as cover in what is one of the most common ‘scams’ known in executry work.

Lack of Professional Indemnity Insurance – which solicitors do have, in terms of the Master Insurance Policy, run by the US owned insurers Marsh, who pled guilty to fraud & bid rigging criminal charges in the USA along with Royal Sun Alliance on behalf of the Law Society of Scotland. However, the Master Policy hardly ever pays out, and if victims of solicitor will fraud try and make a claim against either the Master Policy for negligence, or the equally corrupt “Guarantee Fund” compensation scheme run by the Law Society, sheer hell is unleashed, making sure claims fail on a routine basis.

It should also be noted I reported earlier on the personal cost of trying to claim against solicitors Professional Indemnity Insurance which revealed Suicides, illness, broken families and ruined clients reveal true cost of Law Society's Master Policy which 'allows solicitors to sleep at night'

Poor storage of wills – indeed, I could write about hundreds of solicitors who are or have been the subject of complaints to the Law Society where original wills have went missing, to be replaced with doctored versions giving intricate & costly duties to the solicitor never intended by the deceased client, and in some bizarre cases, even leaving legacies to the solicitors themselves.

I have reported in earlier articles on the difficulties & dangers of allowing a solicitor to handle wills & executry work, particularly focussing on one of the primary dangers of making a solicitor an executor of a will – something I would not recommend anyone ever try as such a decision will lead to many problems for those left behind to deal with. You can read my earlier report on this topic here : Consumer warning on wills : Don't make your lawyer your executor as soaring cases of 'will fraud' show Law Society closes ranks on complaints

Reprinted from my earlier report are a few examples of solicitors defrauding wills & executry estates, which it appears the Scottish Government are still content to allow by leaving regulation of lawyers in the hands of lawyers, and thus denying the Scots public the total consumer protection of fully independent regulation of legal services in Scotland.

You decide who should be protected from whom after reading these examples :

Example 1

Solicitor ripped off dead client & family, paid huge interest to his own Bank. An elderly man recently deceased had left his home, possessions & sizeable investments to his wife & family in what he obviously thought was a simple straight forward will, making the mistake of appointing his solicitor as his executor. The first thing the solicitor did was open up three overdraft accounts with a local High Street bank which coincidentally, the solicitor also deals with on a business & personal basis. Over the three years the solicitor took to process his deceased client's estate, the High Street Bank received a staggering £27,000 in interest alone on the overdraft accounts, despite there being no debts on the deceased’s estate. Documents also now reveal the solicitor negotiated some cheap personal finance from the same High Street bank to purchase a second home.

The widow of the deceased, upon being told the investments in the will had been cut in value by three quarters, made a complaint to the Law Society of Scotland after discovering through careful investigation her late husband's investments had been changed around by the solicitor at his own discretion rather than being realised and handed over to the family as per the instructions contained in the will. Now the Law Society have backed the solicitor against the family, despite a £250,000 loss being incurred in the late husband's investments, together with the loss of title deeds to the home in which the widow still lives, while it seems the solicitor has experienced a remarkable increase in his own personal wealth, along with 3 recent top of the range cars.

Example 2

Solicitor & accountant ripped off client’s charitable donations via her will. The result of the charitable intentions of a deceased elderly nurse who bequeathed her substantial entire savings including her house, in total valued at over £2 million to charitable causes, has so far resulted in not one of her wishes being respected by the solicitor and a long time friend, an accountant, she made executors of her will.

Charities who were named in the initial will have, after two years, yet to receive a penny, while again, a local High Street Bank has received over £18,000 in interest on several overdraft accounts opened by the solicitor allegedly to pay debts on the estate which never existed. Meanwhile the solicitor has also bought himself a second house, as has the deceased's' long time friend' the accountant, and the charities who were due to receive sums of money are now questioning whether they will receive anything, given a recent letter to one charity from the solicitor suggesting "there was little left in the estate to cover the charitable bequests" - this despite the fact the nurse had no debts whatsoever, and owned her own home.

The paralegal who brought this case to the attention of Law Society of Scotland has been sacked from solicitor’s law firm, and since there is no one to independently monitor how the solicitor and accountant, both acting as executor, have so fraudulently mishandled the estate of their client (and victim) nothing will probably be done against those who have so obviously plundered the estate of their dead client. Even the charities themselves are apparently reluctant to make a complaint to the Law Society of Scotland, possibly because a fleet of solicitors wives and family relatives sit on one of the charities concerned.

Example 3

Solicitor stole 400k from will, no action by Law Society. A solicitor named as executor in an estate of an elderly unmarried man who had no surviving family, dying three years ago, tore up the original will of his client, and replaced it with one he had created to cover up the fact that a whopping £400,000 has disappeared from his deceased client's bank accounts.

The will, which left a substantial bequest to a care home managed by the deceased's local authority, has also seen the usual huge payments of interest fees to a local High Street Bank, in one case alone of £14,000 of pure interest, the same bank handling the solicitor's law firm accounts.

The local authority had questioned when the bequest was to be made over to them, after being told by the solicitor there was little left to pay out his client’s wishes. The Law Society are supposedly still looking into the case, with as yet no action against the solicitor concerned.

Example 4

Solicitor acting as executor stole over £30,000 from children’s trust. A deceased soldier who appointed his lawyer as executor, leaving everything to his wife & children, has unwittingly placed his family in the position of having to endure sickening refusals by the legal profession to do anything to recover over £30,000 of investments which were placed in a trust by the deceased client, for his children. The solicitor, acting as executor, cashed in the trust and used it to pay off gambling debts which everyone including the Law Society is now trying cover up.

If the Scottish Government are keen to protect members of the public and their wills, taking self regulation away from the legal profession, who appear to be causing most of the damage against people’s wills should be a primary objective of the Legal Services Bill …