The Professional Standard for Running a Will-Writing Business

Will writing in England and Wales sits outside the reserved legal activities, and everyone in the sector knows what that has attracted: pressure selling, opaque pre-paid products and drafting done by people with no business doing it. It is why the Competition and Markets Authority investigated the market, and why serious practitioners spend so much of their time being distinguished from it.

This article is not a pitch for entering the market. It is a description of the standard a will-writing business has to meet to be defensible: to clients, to insurers, to the CMA’s consumer-law guidance and to whoever one day inherits or buys the will bank. If you run a will-writing or estate-planning practice, are professionalising one, are setting one up and intend to do it properly, or are weighing up an acquisition, this is the standard we would hold ourselves to. If you are looking for a shortcut into drafting Wills for money, you will not find one here: the absence of a licence requirement is where your obligations start, not where they end. It focuses on England and Wales and is not a substitute for advice on your own ownership, services or regulatory status.

Where the regulatory boundary sits

The Legal Services Act 2007 reserves six activities to authorised people, and the Legal Services Board’s explanation of the perimeter confirms that Wills are excluded from reserved instrument activities. Probate activities (preparing the papers used to obtain or oppose a grant) are reserved, as are litigation and certain land-related work. Carrying on a reserved activity without entitlement is a criminal offence under the Act. What a will-writing business must also never do is imply that it is regulated by the SRA when it is not, or use a protected title such as “solicitor” without entitlement.

The boundary is narrower than it looks and easy to drift across. Map every service against the perimeter, and re-run the map whenever you add a service, partner or referral arrangement: a bundled “estate plan” or pre-paid probate product can cross the line without anyone noticing the change.

Competence has a floor, even when nobody mandates it

No statute sets a qualification for Will writing, so the voluntary bodies define what credible looks like. The Institute of Professional Willwriters (IPW) requires an entrance examination (or an equivalent qualification such as STEP or CILEX), annual CPD and professional indemnity insurance of at least £2 million, and its code of practice is approved by the Chartered Trading Standards Institute. The Society of Will Writers (SWW) requires an application process, adherence to its code, 24 hours of CPD a year and the same £2 million of cover. The Law Society’s Wills and Inheritance Quality Scheme (WIQS) sits above both, but is only open to practices authorised and regulated by the SRA; an unregulated will-writing business cannot obtain it.

The honest reading of those requirements is that they describe the minimum, not a badge. A practice that could not pass the IPW’s entrance examination or sustain the SWW’s CPD commitment has no business taking instructions, member or not. Build to that standard regardless, and join a body if you can: membership is not statutory authorisation, but it gives clients training standards, a code and a complaints route they can check.

Suitability and capacity come first

A Will is the output of an advisory process, and the two areas that carry the most risk are suitability and capacity. Define what your practice can competently handle, decide in advance when a client needs specialist or independent advice, and never let a sales target make that decision.

Capacity is decision-specific: a client may need support in other areas of life and still be able to make a valid Will, while a confident presentation proves nothing either way. See the client alone where appropriate, record who arranged the appointment and who stands to benefit, and note the client’s own explanation of their estate and choices rather than a tick-box conclusion. If a client cannot make a Will, the correct route is a statutory Will through the Court of Protection (see the government’s statutory Will guidance), not instructions taken from an attorney or relative.

View the nine triage triggers that need escalation

the client’s domicile, residence and foreign assets;
business, agricultural or intellectual property;
taxable estates and lifetime-gift history;
second families, estranged relatives and possible claims;
beneficiaries who are minors, disabled or financially vulnerable;
mutual, mirror or potentially binding arrangements;
existing trusts, shareholder agreements or pension nominations;
capacity concerns, dependency, coercion or undue influence; and
a request for the business or its staff to act as executor or trustee.

For each trigger, document whether the response is enhanced review, a medical opinion, independent advice, a specialist referral or declining the instruction.

A practice that has never declined an instruction does not have an escalation process; it has a sales process.

Execution failures invalidate more Wills than bad drafting

Section 9 of the Wills Act 1837 governs the formalities: the Will must be in writing and signed by the testator (or by someone in their presence and at their direction) intending to give it effect; the signature must be made or acknowledged before two witnesses present at the same time; and each witness must attest and sign in the testator’s presence. The temporary video-witnessing rules expired for Wills made after 31 January 2024, so do not build a process around them. Use the current government guidance on making a Will. Train and supervise the people doing the work, because there is no safe route from template access to competence, and outsourced drafting remains your responsibility: the client contracted with you.

View the execution workflow checklist

give clear, version-specific signing instructions;
warn about unsuitable witnesses and the effect on gifts;
prevent mixing pages from different drafts;
record whether execution is supervised or client-managed;
check the returned document without altering it;
record the original’s storage location; and
tell the client how to review or replace the Will after life changes.

Consumer law runs through the whole sales journey

The Competition and Markets Authority investigated unregulated will-writing and pre-paid probate services over misleading advertising, pressure selling and unfair terms. Its consumer-law guidance for unregulated legal services, refreshed in January 2026 for the regime under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, contains will-writing examples and checklists. Treat it as part of the design of your sales process, not something to check afterwards.

Make your status plain: who the contracting business is, who regulates it (if anyone), and what insurance and redress exist. State the total price and exclusions early, explain commissions and referral incentives, and give the required cancellation information. Take particular care with lifetime storage fees, executor appointments and pre-paid plans: who holds the money, what happens if the provider closes, and how a refund works. Your engagement terms should match the sales conversation. The items most often missed are document-storage terms, executor and trustee charges, and cancellation rights.

View the full engagement-pack contents list

the client and the legal entity providing the service;
scope, exclusions, assumptions and the named adviser;
price, VAT status, payment stages and additional charges;
information the client must provide and the consequence of delay;
how drafts are approved and how execution will be handled;
document storage, retrieval and destruction terms;
executor, trustee or attorney appointments and all associated charges;
cancellation and refund rights;
privacy information and communication security;
the complaints process and any independent redress; and
insurance details and meaningful limitations of liability.

Insurance and continuity are not optional extras

No statute sets a minimum, but both the IPW and the SWW expect £2 million of professional indemnity cover, and a practice should hold it before the first instruction. Tell the broker exactly what you do: services, client types, jurisdictions, document-storage obligations and any executor or trustee appointments. Check retroactive cover, run-off, cyber events, lost documents and outsourced drafting.

Plan for incapacity, death and closure as well. Another competent person must be able to find live matters, stored originals and complaints if you cannot, and client files must never become inaccessible because knowledge sits with one practitioner or one software login.

Data security and portability decide what the business is worth

Will files hold identity documents, family relationships, health information and financial decisions the client may not have shared with relatives. Map what you collect, provide a privacy notice, control access, encrypt devices and backups, and pay the ICO’s data-protection fee unless you are genuinely exempt.

Then plan for consolidation, because it is already happening. Dignity, the funeral group, agreed to acquire the online will-writer Farewill in October 2024. The collapse of WW&J McClure shows the disorderly version: client files were transferred at speed, and the SRA is still overseeing remediation covering roughly 60,000 stored Wills, on a timetable running to August 2027. Assume your will bank will change hands at some point, whether by sale, merger, retirement or failure.

If you are selling, the will bank is only an asset if it can be handed over cleanly. That means client, document and storage-location records linked for every Will and exportable in open, machine-readable formats; privacy notices that allow for a future sale (the ICO’s data sharing code of practice has a section on due diligence in mergers and acquisitions); a clear record of the storage, executor and pre-paid promises that will survive completion; and up-to-date compliance registers, which shorten due diligence and protect the price. If your software cannot export your data, expect that to come off the price as well.

If you are buying, verify the will register before agreeing a price: how many Wills there are, where the originals are held and how complete the contact data is. You inherit the storage, executor and pre-paid obligations that come with the book. Reconcile the physical originals against the register on day one, and re-run your regulatory perimeter map across the combined business. You will also need somewhere secure to put the incoming records. Superlawyer is certified to ISO/IEC 27001 and holds client, document and storage records in structured, importable form; our trust centre sets out the security controls in detail.

Check whether AML supervision applies

Neither of the common assumptions is safe: not all Will work falls within the Money Laundering Regulations, and an unregulated will writer is not automatically outside them. A business that acts, or arranges for another to act, as a professional trustee may be a trust or company service provider. HMRC says an in-scope TCSP not supervised by another appropriate body must register for AML supervision before trading, so review HMRC’s current TCSP registration guidance. Even where the Regulations do not apply, keep proportionate identity, fraud and sanctions controls.

Run it like a practice

Make the status of every instruction visible: enquiry and perimeter triage; conflict and identity checks; engagement and payment; instructions, capacity and suitability; drafting, independent review and client approval; execution and returned-document check; storage and closure with a complete audit record. Use exception reporting for stalled drafts, unexecuted Wills and missing originals, and version-control your templates with a named owner. Learn more about structured private-client drafting and workflow automation.

The controls a professional practice can evidence

The regulatory perimeter documented for every service offered.
The legal entity, status wording and use of professional titles approved.
Acceptance, escalation, referral and decline criteria defined, and used.
Staff competence assessed, with a named technical supervisor.
Appropriate PII and cyber cover in place.
Consumer-law compliance reviewed across marketing and contracts.
ICO assessment, privacy documentation and security controls complete.
Client, document and storage-location records linked and exportable in open formats.
The storage, executor and pre-paid commitments that would transfer with the business recorded, and the software contract’s exit and data-return terms checked.
AML supervision and any other applicable regime determined.
The full workflow tested against routine and high-risk scenarios.
Complaints, continuity, document storage and closure arrangements in place.

The defensible business is not the one with the largest clause library. It is the one that explains its status honestly, recognises the limits of its competence, records the client’s independent instructions, controls execution and is still answerable when a problem surfaces years later. Clients cannot judge the quality of a Will at the point of sale: the defects surface after death, when nothing can be corrected. That is exactly why, in an unregulated market, the standard has to be self-imposed. The practices that hold themselves to it are the ones a consolidating market will eventually pay for. The rest are the reason the CMA got involved.

Common questions

Is writing a Will a reserved legal activity?

No: Wills sit outside the reserved instrument activities under the Legal Services Act 2007, which is why the sector is described as unregulated. Preparing the papers used to obtain or oppose a grant of probate is reserved. The practical consequence is that the obligations in this article fall on the business itself rather than a regulator.

How can a client check a will writer’s status?

SRA-authorised firms appear on the SRA’s public register. Non-solicitor businesses can evidence IPW or SWW membership, which carries an entrance standard, CPD, a code of practice and a complaints route. A business that can point to none of these is asking to be taken on trust.

What is WIQS?

The Wills and Inheritance Quality Scheme is the Law Society’s accreditation for wills, probate and estate administration, open only to practices authorised and regulated by the SRA. A business displaying the WIQS badge is an authorised firm; the closest equivalents for a non-solicitor business are IPW or SWW membership.

What insurance should a will-writing business hold?

Professional indemnity cover of at least £2 million, the level both the IPW and the SWW require, arranged before the first instruction, with the broker told exactly what the business does, including document-storage obligations and any executor or trustee appointments. Check retroactive cover, run-off and cyber events.

Do the Money Laundering Regulations apply to will writers?

Not automatically, and not automatically not. A business that acts as a professional trustee, or arranges for another to, may be a trust or company service provider that must register with HMRC for AML supervision before trading. Check HMRC’s TCSP guidance either way.

What happens to stored Wills if a will-writing business closes?

Whatever the business planned for, which is the point. The collapse of WW&J McClure left the SRA overseeing remediation of roughly 60,000 stored Wills on a timetable running to August 2027. Every practice should be able to say who takes over live matters, stored originals and complaints if it cannot continue.

Sources and further reading

Last reviewed: 11 August 2026. This article provides general information for England and Wales and is not legal, tax or regulatory advice.