From Legal Futures’ Associate Certainty the National Will Register [1]
Mr Robinson comments: “When my uncle passed away, we were holding a copy of a 1989 Will. Due to lots of family dynamics and circumstances changing since then, we wanted to check that there wasn’t a later Will before applying for probate. If this was the last Will we also needed to locate the original – the firm who wrote the Will were no longer in existence and we had no idea whether it even existed anymore, let alone where it might be.”
Mr Robinson continues: “My own search started with the local bank branch and the 2 solicitors in the village where my uncle lived – none of those had any information as to the whereabouts of my Uncle’s Will, however they recommended I contacted Certainty the National Will Register, and thought they might be able to help.
I had no reason to suspect that the Will might have been registered, so I opted to search for both registered and unregistered Wills.
Within 24 hours I received a call from a solicitor advising me that they were holding a file for my deceased Uncle, and made an appointment for me to visit them; they asked me to bring along a death certificate and some identification.”
Mr Robinson continues: “The Will that was discovered was the original 1989 Will, confirming the copy that we held was my uncle’s last Will solving 2 problems that we faced – was the 1989 Will the last? Would we have to prove the copy?”
Certainty does not disclose the existence of a Will – when a search takes place it provides the searcher’s details to the holder of the Will. The firm then verifies the searcher’s entitlement in order to discuss the Will with the searcher.
60 seconds after the Certainty Will Search, Certainty the National Will Register notified the solicitor that held the Will. 24 hours after being notified the solicitor contacted the searcher to verify their entitlement to discuss the Will. The searcher had been searching for 22 days before using a Certainty Will Search to solve the mystery.
Finding unknown, later and lost Wills each and every day.
For further information on Will registration and the types of searches you can carry out please contact us on 0330 100 3660 or email enquiries@certainty.co.uk [2].