Will-writing is unregulated — what that really means for you

If your plumber needed more official paperwork than the person drafting your will — would you believe it? In England & Wales, that can literally be true. Here is the regulatory gap nobody advertises, and what it means for anyone buying a will.

The quirk

The law reserves certain activities — conducting litigation, probate work — to authorised professionals. Drafting wills never made the list. It is a historical accident, debated for decades and never fixed, and it leaves the market open to absolutely anyone.

“Unregulated” spelled out

For an unregulated will-writing business, there are:

• No required exams or qualifications.
• No mandatory professional indemnity insurance.
• No regulator with the power to strike anyone off.
• No Legal Ombudsman route for complaints.
• No compensation fund behind the business.

The failure patterns the market has produced

Across the industry over the years: firms folding while “storing” thousands of customers' wills; aggressive upselling of expensive trust products of doubtful benefit; and errors surfacing only at death — when the customer cannot complain and the family cannot fix the document.

A fair balance

None of this means every will-writer is bad. Many are diligent, and some belong to voluntary trade bodies with codes of practice and insurance requirements — genuinely better than nothing. But voluntary means they chose the rules and can un-choose them. A solicitor cannot resign from regulation and keep practising: the SRA's rules, insurance requirements, ombudsman and compensation fund are compulsory, permanent, and enforceable.

The point is not the person; it is the safety net. With regulation you have one. Without it, you are relying on luck — and for a document that is only tested after you die, luck is a poor strategy.

Your thirty-second protection

Before instructing anyone, search their name on the SRA register — public, free, online. Regulated or not: black and white, before you hand over a penny.