Private client services

We provide a comprehensive range of services that covers pre-death planning to include Wills, Advance Directives, Lasting Powers of Attorney, Funeral Plans, End of Life Plans, funeral co-ordination and organisation including post-death practical assistance and help with Probate or Letters of Administration.

Wills

The importance of making a Will cannot be overstated. A properly drafted, legally valid Will, is the only way to ensure that your wishes are carried out properly. Telling people what you wish or writing “a note” is not sufficient and easily leads to family feuds which can last for generations. If you don’t have a valid Will then your estate is deemed intestate and will go under the laws of intestacy to specifically listed relatives. If you don’t have those then it could end up going to the Crown. The terms of this document cannot be utilised until your death. Our Denise Jones is a retired solicitor who specialised for many years, when practising, in Wills, Probate, Court of Protection work and Land Law and is able to advise you, by phone, email, skype or zoom, and of course face to face meetings within the South Wales area. Denise is also very experienced in the preparation of inheritance tax savings Wills when the parties are over the inheritance tax threshold. If you already have a Will and just wish to make a small addition or alteration you can do so by way of a Codicil rather than having to re-do the whole will, which is obviously quicker, easier and cheaper!

Advance Directives

These are also known as Living Wills and therefore just as important for your wishes to be adhered to while you are still alive as of course your “normal” Will does not “speak” as such until your death. The Advance Directive can be made to state what interventions you will allow to your body if you sadly have a condition that would normally dictate medical treatments. A copy of this document should be lodged with your local doctor and a copy placed with your medical record at your local hospital so that all your medical attendants are aware of your wishes.

Lasting Powers of Attorney

As you may be aware there are two types, a Health & Welfare LPA which gives your attorneys the power to deal with all your welfare issues and they can stand in your place to make life or death decisions and the other is to deal with your Property and Financial Affairs. Neither document can be used until they are registered at the Court of Protection and each document carries a registration fee, the process taking between 2 to 3 months. You may feel it wise to register at least your Health and Welfare document in readiness for any immediate use and leave the registration of the Finance document until your Attorneys actually “need” to use it. Once registered we would provide you with certified copies for use with the associations/banks etc that need them as the originals should be kept safely. If you, or one of your relatives, have an Enduring Power of Attorney in place which were only legally made up until October 2007, then we can help you in the registration of the same with the Court or Protection. These documents only have to be registered if, or when, the donor becomes or is becoming, mentally incapable of looking after their affairs.

Probate Assistance

We can help you with all the paperwork necessary to be presented to the Probate office following a death. We can do as little or as much as you want us to. You can provide us with all the paperwork after you have done the “leg work” by getting all the required information and we can just do the forms for you or we can obtain the information ourselves to prepare the forms for your signature and submission.

Funeral planning

We deal with a few of the main companies who offer Funeral plans so can assist you in making your decisions and/or applications in order to pre-pay for your funeral either by lump sum or by instalments.

End of Life planning

There are many reasons why you may wish to plan your own life’s end. Maybe you want to relieve your family of the burden of having to make the decisions on what... > more on end of life planning

Funeral co-ordination and organisation

Following a death, the funeral is the event on which everyone is focused. Funeral directors are generally key to this occasion and provide... > more on funeral co-ordination and organisation

Post-death practical assistance

When someone dies there are a lot of practical tasks that have to be undertaken both at the time of the death and afterwards, everything from registering the death... > more on post death support