Wills: Number of specialist firms on the rise
Big increases in grants of representation and powers of attorney (POA) applications have increased the growth rate of the wills and probate market to 7% this year and a market value of £2.8bn, new research has found.
Almost 500, mainly general practice, law firms left the market in 2024, however, although the number of law firms specialising in contentious probate also grew by 7%.
Researchers from IRN Legal Reports predicted in the UK Wills, Probate and Trusts Market Report 2024 that market value would increase by 6% in 2025 and continue to grow at around 6% until 2028, when its total value would reach £3.6bn.
While the core will-writing sector was increasingly “price-led”, growth was driven by other services such as probate and POAs.
Meanwhile, data from the law societies of England and Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland indicated that, for the first time, the number of law firms offering will-writing services dropped to below 6,000.
“Many high street law firms, important local providers of will writing services, have closed or merged with others in the last three years and this is a key factor behind the decline in law firm numbers.”
However, there had been “year-on-year” growth in numbers of law firms specialising in contentious probate, wills and trusts.
The number of contentious probate specialists increased to 304 by October this year, a 7% increase from 2023 and 36% increase on 2020. The number of firms specialising in disputed wills also went up, to 197 firms.
Although the number of these specialist firms was “still relatively small”, it has more than doubled since 2018.
Researchers said there was a 28% increase in issued grants of representation in the first half of 2024 compared to the first half of the previous year – 165,000 compared to just under 130,000.
When the figures are broken down, the number of grants of probate fell slightly, but an increase in letters of administration more than made up for this.
IRN said the growth was “due in part to the processing of probate for more deaths in 2023 with a time lag plus some improvement in dealing with the backlogs in the probate process”.
Over the last 10 years, the number of private individuals dealing with grants of representation themselves had increased, rising to almost 44% last year.
The number of applications to register a POA in England and Wales “increased significantly” last year, reaching almost 1.2m and representing an increase of 37% on the previous year.
“Figures covering the first half of 2024 suggest that applications in the calendar year 2024 are heading for over 1.5m.”
Researchers said growth was being driven by the ageing population and increased awareness of the need to safeguard the health, assets and property of older relatives.
They added that the Office of the Public Guardian had cut the backlog from 223,200 lasting power of attorney applications in March 2023 to 149,400 in March 2024.
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