News about the Institute and other issues relating to Willwriting.
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+Apology 15/08/2011In our response to the Legal Services Consumer Panel request for evidence of problems in the Will-writing market, the Institute of Professional Willwriters referred to a programme broadcast on BBC1 as part of their series ‘Rip-Off Britain. The programme featured the case of a client who had contracted the firm ‘Trust inheritance’, although they were not named in the programme, to draw up her Will. The client claimed she had been ‘ripped off.
Trust Inheritance complained to Ofcom the programme was misleading and they had been treated unfairly in it.
It has transpired that the circumstances of the client were not as portrayed in the programme and that in the view of Ofcom, the position of Trust Inheritance, by way of a brief commentary in the programme, did not sufficiently represent the position of them.
In featuring the events of the programme in its response to the Consumer Panel, the Institute chose to name Trust inheritance and to reply on the BBC programme without undertaking any independent investigation into the allegations made, despite the fact that we now understand that Trust Inheritance complained to the BBC before the first programme was shown and subsequent to the first broadcast and before it was broadcast makers and reported the content in good faith. We acknowledge this was a serious mistake we apologise to Trust Inheritance for allowing misleading and incorrect information about it and its services to be included in our response.
