Not a great service
My wife and I used Co-op Estate Planning services to arrange new wills and Lasting Power of Attorney (LPA) arrangements.
Our initial consultation was via a video call with an Estate Planning Consultant. She recommended that we each had our wills written in trust, known as a Revokable Life Interest Trust (RLIT).
Following this, our case was then handed to a Case Manager who was responsible for getting drafts of the RLIT wills written and for the preparation of the LPAs.
Initially all went well and we were pleased with the service and I gave a positive review, however, during the process of having the wills drafted, we had a number of questions, mainly around the mechanics of how the RLIT process works when it comes to enacting them. We found it surprising that there was little literature offered and the original Estate Planning Consultant proved difficult to contact and get answers from, even after the Case Manager had referred us back to her. In the end I had to contact a third-party solicitor to get the information that I needed.
We also found that it took some time for the Case Manager to prepare the correct paperwork, which wasn’t helped when we couldn’t readily access the revised drafts through the Co-op’s dedicated web portal, despite pointing this out on a number of occasions. We felt that she had many other cases on her plate, so her responses to our questions often took some time.
Overall, we didn’t think the service we were offered was as good as it could have been. Answers to our questions were often slow in coming, and in some cases were ignored.
We got there in the end, but the process was slow and less than fully satisfactory. In hindsight I think the services of a local solicitor would have provided a faster and more personal outcome.
June 5, 2025
Unprompted review