As legal and finance firms step up their search for new revenue streams, will writing has emerged as a lucrative market for many of the region's businesses in recent years. However, as Andrew Mernin discovers, a lack of regulation and transparency has left the industry suffering from a flood of under-qualified practitioners who are causing major damage to the sector.

DESPITE the clamour among legal players large and small to get their share of the vast will writing market, the practice remains hugely under-regulated compared to other parts of the financial world.

While there are marks of quality and recommendations that firms can rely on to build trust with potential customers, no official qualification is needed to become a will writer.

The result is an industry suffering from a growing number of cases of irregularities, abuses of power and examples of some of society’s most vulnerable people investing considerable sums of cash on something which may ultimately serve no purpose.

Meanwhile, trusted and reliable will writers face an uphill struggle to assure clients that, unlike the rising number of cowboys that are increasingly setting up practices, they have their clients’ best interests at heart.

A recent study by the Legal Services Consumer Panel, which examined 101 randomly sampled wills written by solicitors, will writers and other practitioners, found that one in four failed to live up to the basic required standards. The same report showed that a third of the wills were rated “poor” or “very poor” by a panel of experts.

Antony Dowling, who runs Gosforth-based will-writing practice The Will Works, believes the problem is being compounded by larger, multi-faceted law firms jumping into what they see as a lucrative untapped market, sometimes with little of the knowledge required to deliver a credible product.

Such is his frustration at the rise of unscrupulous rivals, that he recently invested in a course which was drawn up purely with the aim of eradicating the unqualified from the profession.

At the time of writing, he is the only person in the North East – and one of only a handful in the country – to receive the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners’ (STEP) Advanced Certificate in Will Preparation.

The qualification was created by STEP in response to growing concerns over low standards in the will-writing profession after numerous media reports of abuses and irregularities.

Dowling said: “Writing a will is one of the most important ways of providing for the people you care about and it is essential that the public have confidence in the will-writing profession. There are too many people offering a will-writing service without the necessary expertise and at present anyone can call themselves a will writer regardless of education or training including many solicitors that have never been trained in the field.”

There’s no doubt that will writing represents a potentially huge growth market for legal businesses. Office of Fair Trading (OFT) figures show that 53% of adults in England and Wales do not have a will.

Additional research carried out by STEP found that 75% of its members had encountered cases of incompetence or dishonesty in the will-writing market in the last 12 months.

The same report found that 63% have direct experience of cases where will writers have gone out of business and disappeared with their clients’ wills.

Also, two thirds of STEP members reported that they have, at some point, come across hidden fees that were not outlined in the stated price for a will.

Fortunately for people who require a will, the relevant authorities and the Government are well aware of the need for more regulation. In Scotland, the Legal Services Act 2010 contains provisions which will regulate will writers. The success of the soon-to-be actioned regulations could dictate what happens in the North East and the rest of England and Wales, according to Brian McMillan, director general of the Society of Will Writers.

“There’s plenty going on and everyone’s working hard to try and get it right,” he says. But McMillan believes the problems facing the will-writing market may not be as bad as speculated in the wake of high-profile – and sometimes overblown – cases of poor or ineffectual will writing.

“My personal view is that it is a small rogue element and not as widespread, or as rife as it sometimes appears to be. We sorted out the problems caused by one company but because it had 20 consultants spread across the country, it seemed worse than it was.”