Should Undertakers Offer Legal Services?

When a loved one dies, it is an emotionally difficult time.  Not only do you have to come to terms with your loss but also there are various things that you have to do relatively quickly, such as registering the death and organising the funeral.

What most people do after organising the funeral is to consult a solicitor and seek advice on how best to handle their loved one’s financial affairs.

However, nowadays there are some firms of undertakers who, not only organise the funeral arrangements, but are now attempting to offer legal services as well.

The way these undertakers do this is that when you are arranging the family funeral, the undertakers offer usually half an hour’s worth of free telephone legal advice as part of the funeral package.  This would seem fair enough, and potentially is an offer that a number of people might be attracted to.

However, you need to be careful if when taking up these sorts of offers is that you usually end up talking to somebody at a call centre who might be more interested in selling you their legal services rather than actually wanting to provide you with genuine clear legal advice and trying to look after your best interests.

Sometimes these call centres allegedly use scaremongering tactics and allegedly falsely claim that if you go to a high street solicitor you could be charged by the hour and the legal bill could be enormous.  This is not true as most high street solicitors are obliged at the outset to provide an accurate estimate of the legal charges and some even provide legal services at a fixed fee.

In fact quite often high street solicitors’ services are cheaper than the services that are offered by these undertakers.

Therefore when a loved one has passed away and you are looking for a good solicitor to deal with your loved one’s probate and administration estate work then be careful if you are given a number to ring for some free legal advice.  You will end up talking to somebody from a call centre.

Quite often your best bet is to seek legal advice from a firm of solicitors that specialise in probate and estate administration legal work.  Most solicitors, including ourselves, will happily provide you with a free initial discussion and legal advice as well as an accurate costs estimate and often a fixed quote.

We at Seatons have offices in Corby, Kettering and Northampton and cover the whole of Northamptonshire.  However, distance is not a problem wherever you live.  We act for clients right across England and Wales.  We offer home visits and we always provide an outstanding legal service.

If you need initial free advice on probate or an estate administration matter then please give us a call on 01536 276322 and ask for Adrian Chambers.