4 reviews (4/5) and information for Moore Blatch LLP, Richmond

03/12/19 - Reviewed by Robert

PLEASE PLEASE beware when using this firm to update a will. Please ensure the individual giving the advice is aware of ALL the relevant information needed to provide legitimate advice, and does not exert potentially undue influence on vulnerable elderly individuals, without all the relevant information!

A long term friend of mine recently died aged 97. He had written a number of wills over many years, all of which were logical, made perfect sense, and which in the Will before the last one left me and my husband around £320,000 as a pecuniary legacy and to act as an Executor of his estate. When he was 96 he went to Moore Blatch in Richmond just to change one direct item left to a beneficiary, into a pecuniary legacy of the same value. He came out having signed a new Will at the meeting with completely new provisions and in which I was left a pecuniary legacy of only £20,000, but was still expected to act as an Executor of a highly complex estate.

The deceased sent me a note the day after seeing the Solicitor saying he had been extremely concerned to learn on one of his properties he would need to pay £1M in Inheritance Tax - which implies the building is worth just under £2.8M as he was giving over 10% of his estate to charities. What I am pretty sure the Solicitor would have been unaware of (as the Testator rarely talked about his wealth to anyone) is that he had many other substantial assets and that all charities named in his Will would be well provided for in the remains of the Estate, even if the £320,000 left to my family were retained .......

The testator sadly passed away with me regularly holding his hand and comforting him whilst he spent a week dying in hospital. I have known him around 40 years, he was best man at my wedding, and there was absolutely no reason why I was virtually cut out of the Will. He would be absolutely mortified to know how conflicted his Will's amendment has now left me.

I too am mortified, and the legacy I was expecting - and he always said he would leave me - would have enabled me to retire .... now I cannot do so ..... should I be an executor of an Estate in a complete mess - well I think I will not be able to do that either, which of course will leave a mess for a Solicitor as the other Executor will not be able to undertake it .......... and guess who benefits - a firm of Solicitors - although my one act in doing anything will be to ensure it is not Moore Blatch as it appears there might have been a bit of self interest here ...........

BE WARNED ............ in my view not all advice from solicitors is good or sound advice!

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