Feeling charitable: should you be part of a free will-writing scheme?

For many charities it seems charity begins not at home but in a solicitor’s office. With many in the charity sector seriously worried that the increase in Probate Court fees which the government intends to bring forth in April (note at the time of writing the details have yet to be announced), there will be more pressure than ever on charity fundraisers to promote will writing. The fear is that the fee increase would proportionately reduce the money available for charitable gifts. Hence a proposal in an open letter to the Ministry of Justice by the Institute of Legacy Management, Remember a Charity and the Institute of Fundraisers, among others, that estates where there is a will which includes charitable gifts should get a discount on probate fees. This is a good idea, but I doubt it will come to pass. Instead many charities will look to crank up their respective will-writing schemes to maintain charitable legacy income at current levels. In addition, the termination by the government of the Smee & Ford will notification contract later this year is adding to the woes of charities, who rely on the service for forecasting future income and to prevent against executors not paying out gifts due to charities. The MoJ intends to replace it with an in-house system but there is a clear risk of a break in the service or that the new service may not be as reliable. All of this is making many charities jittery about forecasting future income. The very likely consequence is that a charity will scheme is likely to be promoted somewhere in your locality sometime very soon.

FREE WORK

It would not be a great business model but I could, if I wanted, spend all of my time drafting wills under various charity schemes, many of which seem to expect solicitors to do so for free. Some charities run a campaign once a year for a week or a month, others have a scheme running all year. Some will subsidise the fee by paying all or some of the legal fees, others will expect the solicitor to work for free and, in effect, offer up their fee as a charity donation. The legal undercurrent of all these schemes is that charities do not benefit under the intestacy rules, so to generate legacy income it is essential to have wills made. But, in fairness for charities, these schemes are mostly a way to help potential donors overcome inertia or other barriers to enter the will-writing market. And I get that, but I increasingly wonder whether solicitors should embrace this approach because it encourages will to be written, or whether we should treat these schemes with caution. One major charity who runs a will-making scheme which pays the solicitors taking part a small contribution reckons they get a legacy out of around 70 per cent of the wills written. Each will costs them around £280 in upfront investment, they’ve calculated. Clearly the cost to the charity is significantly less where the solicitor is asked to work for no fee. Nevertheless, for charities, will schemes and their promotion represent a case of speculation leading hopefully to an accumulation of legacy income. However, some in the world of charitable legacies increasingly see will-writing schemes as a tool to secure support from already committed donors rather than as an income generating strategy in itself. I agree, as surely focusing on will writing simply as a functional tool (“write a will and leave us some money please”) is not ever going to be as successful as inspiring donors to leave a legacy – and who, as a consequence of that, will then move on to make a will. To put it another way, charity will schemes that target everyone end up targeting no one in particular and therefore generate less income for the charity. And I personally feel this must be less satisfying for the solicitor as well.