Our History and Experience

We have been helping clients with their estate planning since 1990 when Alan Moran completed intensive initial training with Just Wills Ltd (Company number 02427464). At that time all documents were produced by Turner Bates Financial Management (FCA Reference number: 153163) who operated as the local agent for Just Wills.

In 1993 Alan took a contract with Legal Systems (Company number 02804169) for initial and ongoing training including residential training at Sidcup and ongoing training in Newbury. The Legal Systems software Will Master was used to prepare Wills, Enduring Powers of Attorney, and Advance Directives. Many clients stored their Wills at Legal Systems (Willbank) Ltd. In 1997 this arm of Legal Systems stopped operating and private arrangements were made with Steve Mason of The Legal Systems Partnership (Company number 03372448) so that we could continue using Will Master.

Always striving to enhance professionalism Alan became a member of The Society of Will Writers as soon as it was formed in 1994 and after further study, he became a Fellow of The Society of Will Writers in 1995.

Software developed incrementally over the years and as new software became available this was engaged including Independent Will Makers (UK) Ltd (Company number 02955320), and Legacy Partners UK, (Company number 03849935) (Legacy came under the ownership of Clive Ponder of Countrywide from 2013 until it was dissolved in 2019).

For several years Interface operated a secure document storage facility using the vault at the Bank of Scotland Birmingham. However, this was cumbersome to operate and we wanted to offer clients an independent storage facility so after research we offered clients the opportunity to use the Society of Will Writers Storage facility at the National Will Archive which had just been launched. For more information refer to the SWW Document Storage – Storing your Will. Almost all clients took up this offer and in 2011 all of their documents were sent to the SWW for storage with the exception of a handful of clients who requested that we return their documents to them so that they could arrange storage themselves.

In 2011-12 Solidus Trusts were engaged to produce Trusts for clients. Their admin systems did not suit our style of working and we moved to Countrywide Tax & Trust Corporation Ltd in 2013. All of our client’s documents were relocated from Solidus Storage to Countrywide Storage in 2019.

Countrywide provide a well-structured course of training and legal support. Initially they prepared all documents for clients but in 2014 we upgraded our licence so that all document production was brought in house. We took on the full Countrywide software licence, professional indemnity insurance, support package, and dedicated website. We pay Countrywide a monthly fee of about £300 in order to provide our clients with help with their estate planning and other legal services.

Over the last couple of years there has been an increasing demand for these services and in order to provide our clients with a more efficient service Katie Moran was engaged in early 2020 to process the administration for all of the Countrywide legal services.

The requirements for the signing and witnessing of documents is governed by the 1837 Wills Act which states that the testator and the two witnesses must all be in the same room at the time of signing. This requirement meant that work was put on hold for several months due to Covid restrictions because the prospect of putting four households or more into the same room was impossible. A change was brought in from September 2020 where Wills and other documents can be witnessed via video conferencing which means that this work is now returning to normal.