Helen
Bamboozled my mum
My 86 year old mum saw Megan Kearns at the Hornchurch office, as she wanted a straightforward amendment to just one of the points on her will, that was originally drawn up 12 months previously by another solicitor in the same firm. She wanted a codicil, that's all, but Megan insisted that I, as her daughter, wasn't allowed in the room. I understand that my mum is her client, and that they need to be sure that she isn't being coerced or pressured into agreeing to something she doesn't want. Said about how my mum is their client, but ignoring the client's wishes to have someone sitting in with them. My mum said Megan was asking her loads of questions about what children and grandchildren she had (this information was already provided previously), when all she wanted was for one change to the will. She was advised it wasn't possible to do the change via a codicil, and that a whole new will would be needed. She said this was because the change was to remove a beneficiary. However, the change wasn't to do this, it was to add a new beneficiary, and for the previous beneficiary to stay on the will, just a bit further down the pecking order. This would have then been in line with the other children/grandchildren arrangements on the initial will. Nothing sinister!!! But apparently it wasn't possible to just do a codicil to change one point on the current will, it would apparently need a whole new will. My mum emerged from the meeting not sure what was supposed to happen next. I phoned the solicitors when we returned to say not happy with how it went, as unfair on my mum to have to deal with it all on her own. Solicitor phoned my mum back and was quite rude, saying she'd close her file down then, if she didn't want to proceed, and then put the phone down on her. Not impressed with her manner.
