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Final Duties is featured in the Sunday times

Final Duties - The independent Probate Broker was featured in a Sunday Times article on the 30th November. The article explored the case of one of their clients, a Mr Francis McCrory, whose late father thought that he had appointed the Woolwich Building Society as executors of his will. When he died his son found that the Woolwich Building Society had subcontracted the work to a third party provider who wanted to charge Mr McCrory over £20,000 to administer his late father's estate and refused to renounce their role as executors.

After a 6 month battle the Woolwich Building Society which is now part of Barclay's Bank group, agreed to renounce their position as executors. Final Duties will now handle the administration of the estate for a fraction of the fee originally quoted.

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Final Duties appears on BBC 1

Adam Walker, Managing director of Final Duties- The independent Probate Brokers was proud to contribute to the BBC 1 television program 'Rip off Britain'. The programme was shown on BBC1 on Tuesday 1st December. The programme which was presented by Angela Ripon, Gloria Hunniford and Jenny Bond took a critical look at the probate market and featured two cases where a bank and a solicitor had tried to charge the beneficiaries nearly ten times the proper rate for obtaining probate. In both cases the bank and solicitor were appointed in the will or as executors and in both cases they refused to renounce their positions, presumably because they wanted to protect their fees.

The programme demonstrated how a determined beneficiary can bring pressure on a bank or solicitor to renounce their position as executor and asked whether the law should be changed to prevent professional executors from abusing their position.

If you have appointed a bank or solicitor as an executor or joint executor in your will then Final Duties is offering a codicil service to remove them. The cost is £99.00 +VAT.

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