Bereavement Assistance Service
When a loved one passes away, it can be incredibly daunting to know where to start. How do I pay the bills? What are my pension rights? Do I need a grant of probate?Whilst it is not always necessary for a Grant of Probate to be obtained,even with a seemingly simple estate there is a lot of administrative work involved.
Very often we are told ‘everything is in joint names, so it should be straightforward’, but the reality is often very different, especially when you are grieving and perhaps your loved one was the one who previously had always dealt with the paperwork side of things. Yet when you are told ‘ it is straightforward’, how can you ask for help?A few of the initial steps come naturally, such as registering the death and arranging the funeral, but then with contacting banks, building societies, utility companies, pension providers and dealing with HM Revenue & Customs the task can often be more involved than people originally think.It is in response to this that Wolferstans are launching a new, fixed fee service, to help families and individuals who are faced with just this scenario.
Wolferstans’ Bereavement Assistance Service is a fully comprehensive service that ensures that everyone who needs to be told is contacted, and all accounts, utilities bills and pensions are transferred, at a minimum of fuss and in a timely and orderly fashion. At the end, you are left with peace of mind that everything has been put in place clearly to allow you to manage going forward and you are left knowing what assets and liabilities you have - much of the stress at this emotional time can then disappear.Samantha Buckthought, head of the Wills and Trust department at Wolferstans said ‘ we were increasingly finding bereaved individuals, who were often elderly, who were completely bewildered as to what they had to do, who they had to speak to, and what accounts they had when they had lost a loved one, even though the estates may not have needed a Grant of Probate or had any complexity. We wanted to cut through that confusion by offering our expertise in an economical way’.Effectively, this is a ‘one stop’ assistance service designed to unburden bereaved families of the complexity that even ‘straightforward’ estates can cause.If you would like further information please contact Annabelle O’Higgins on