Government refuses LSB proposal to regulate will writing

The government has rejected the Legal Service Board's (LSB) recommendation that the interests of the public would be best served by making will writing subject to regulation.

Legal and consumer groups had widely supported the proposal to regulate will writing, while the Chartered Institute of Legal Executives (CILEx) and ILEX Professional Standards (IPS) have pointed out that the government’s decision has ignored the supporting evidence provided by the LSB, as well as the failure of attempts to voluntarily regulate will writing and improve public awareness over the last decade.

Legal Futures reports that the proposal may have been quashed because it clashed with anti-regulation agenda of Chris Grayling, the first man in centuries to hold the post of Lord Chancellor without any legal qualifications. Grayling's decision cited an apparent lack of effort on the part of the LSB to explore alternative solutions. 

Des Hudson, chief executive of the Law Society, commented: "Consumers have been let down by this deeply disappointing decision. We provided plenty of evidence to the LSB, demonstrating that consumers are at real risk from certain unregulated will writers who can be incompetent, untrained and uninsured. Thanks to the government's decision today, unregulated providers can carry on writing wholly unsuitable wills, leaving consumers without any recourse when things go wrong as a result."