Conducting a Certainty Will Search [1] ensures that you have done everything you could to locate the last valid Will of the deceased. It is important to not take the risk by continuing to distribute an estate on the assumption that you are in possession of the last Will and to safeguard this by advising that a Certainty Will Search is conducted. A Certainty Will Search searches for Wills that have been registered on The National Will Register and for Wills that have not yet been registered.
In this case, Gill Leiper, Probate Executive at GloverPriest Solicitors did exactly this to check that the last Will presented to her by her client was in fact the last Will of the deceased. Gill comments: “My client was the nephew of the deceased who was in possession of a Will that was made in 2005 by a Will Writer close to where the deceased had lived which is a different city to where my client and our office is located.”
“The Will appointed the nephew of the deceased as the executor of the estate but due to the date of Will, and as a safeguard measure, I advised that a Certainty Will Search should be conducted.”
Gill continues: “The Certainty Will Search located the registered Will that my client was in possession of and therefore confirmed that no later Will existed. This reassured me that as a professional, I had done everything I could to safely ensure that the estate, in excess of £382,000, would be distributed as the deceased had wished by correctly advising my client.”
Although in this case the Certainty Will Search confirmed that the executor of the estate was in possession of the last valid Will of the deceased, one in ten Certainty Will Searches results in a Will being found where one was thought never to have been written or the original Will being used to distribute the estate had been revoked by the newer found Will.
For further information on the type of searches you can carry out, please contact Certainty the National Will Register on 0330 100 3660 or email enquiries@certainty.co.uk [2].