The future is bright… but it will be a bumpy ride

Have you made any changes for your business or life choices for 2025? Have you been having the conversations with clients around their future planning, family dynamics and potentially what may happen for the next generation in their family in relation to legacies and gifts?

The Christmas and New Year break often brings changes for families, both positive and negative. Whether it’s a marriage, divorce, the loss of a family member, or the addition of a new one, now may be the perfect time to consider writing a will and setting up lasting powers of attorney. It’s important to be informed about where to turn for guidance in this area, or to be able to direct clients to the right resources.

Media coverage and perception around later life planning seems to be at an all-time high with Wills and Lasting Powers of Attorney now being something clients are asking their advisers, as we have been told by so many of our Associates and Advisers we support. This is great news for both us, as a professional company in this space, but also as an industry that has very much been in the background for a long period of time.

As a quick reminder, there are a few ways through estate planning to support your clients and the next generation of their family, please see below:

Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs)

There are two types of LPAs, both of these can be seen to help gain a relationship between yourself and the attorneys, whether this be the spouse or the children. There is also specific wording in the Lasting Powers of Attorney that can indicate the adviser the client has been working with, and suggest that the attorneys carry on that relationship for support. This is something that is rarely used and could hold a substantial benefit as an adviser.

By completing these with your clients, you are maintaining control if they lose capacity, if this isn’t in place, not only will everything be frozen leaving the family in distress, but also the adviser will lose control of the relationship too, not being able to support at a very stressful time.

A comment we hear a lot from clients, is the misconception around Lasting Power of Attorney, and aren’t these documents for the older generation only? Lasting Powers of Attorney should be for everyone! Sadly, even an accident on a night out or car accident even, could bring the urgent need to have had an LPA in place, something that could be completely unforeseen. Without an LPA in place, of who should manage these affairs if anything should happen to that person, social services could easily become involved to manage this situation, not at all what we would want for your clients.

In other areas we would recommend LPAs are put in place; to give an example these would be pension drawdown or transfers, those clients involved in equity release or if they have discretionary managed funds.

I have said this previously in so many avenues but it is still hard for some to believe without a property & financial affairs LPA in place, even joint assets are frozen and without a health and welfare LPA in place, if a life-threatening event was to arise and health queries needed to be raised, the family wouldn’t necessarily be able to act, frightening I know.

Without having an LPA in place the client’s family/ friends would then need to apply for deputyship, sadly a long-winded and variable process costing in the region of £3,000. Even with this, this does not guarantee the family will gain control, as deputyship orders can be granted to social services, they would then be in control.

At APS, we have circa 500 Associates in this field, all supporting their clients in arranging their wills and lasting powers of attorney, offering professional service, and an added income stream into their business but without adding extra administration. Being involved in arranging these documents is vital, rather than just telling a client they need to do this, and then when you see them again, they still haven’t, we would say as a minimum, a referral mechanism into a professional in this space should be given.

This area of planning, with having the relationship advisers have with the client, is a great hand in hand and not only does this carry a duty of care and satisfaction for the client, but this also ensures you are again maintaining that in depth relationship with them. Being involved at this stage, rally feeds into the cycle of then being involved when the time comes for probate to be required, offering future opportunity here for the next generation gaining potential wealth and needing advice.

Options for getting involved:

Refer clients?
Referrers arrange for their clients’ estate planning to be provided through companies such as APS, but without becoming involved in this process themselves.

For ourselves, you would simply need to pass the client’s name and postcode. We would then allocate the closest Associate (estate planning specialist only, non-adviser) to the client and ensure that they are contacted within 48 hours for the arrangement of a face-to-face meeting.

On completion of the case, a referral fee would be paid to yourself. There is no training needed or costs involved and the benefits of this is developing and maintaining a relationship with a reputable company to service your clients’ needs.

With APS in particular, we are part of the Fintel Group and carry that foundation and security for due diligence purposes with a strong reputation nearly 20 years in the industry.

Choose an Associate Route (Either together as estate planning and probate or can be done individually):

With APS, this route gives you full control of advising your clients on all aspects for Wills, Lasting Powers of Attorney and Trusts. Our full training package ensures that all of our associates have the skills and confidence to deliver a first-rate service, while offering continuing support in the form of have associate helplines, ongoing face to face courses, bi-weekly webinars and an online hub. You would meet the client as you would usually, advise them on their specific situation and take instructions from them; we draft all documents in house, under cover of our PI insurance.

Enhanced client relationships, and an additional income stream are a major benefit of the Full Associate route. Being at the front of clients’ minds during the probate stage allows advisers to support the next generation of clients and secure future financial services business. Our Full Associate route is not only open to advisers, we also accept other colleagues within the business. The training needed for this is over three days with the IPW recognised examination, probate services can be added on at any time. The Institute of Professional Will Writers has a code of practice recognised by the Trading Standards Institute, this offers recognised value and security in an otherwise unregulated environment. Fees for the course can be discussed with the team at APS, but these are extremely competitive.

Client education around this is vital, and showing them the risks of what will happen if planning isn’t completed is needed.

Please get in touch with us on 01909 531751 or enquiries@aps-legal.co.uk for more information around referring your clients or indeed joining APS as an Associate.

Get in touch:

www.aps-legal.co.uk
01909 531751
enquiries@aps-legal.co.uk