Certainty the National Will Register is the UK’s provider of a National Will Register and Will Search service which is endorsed by the Law Society.
Established in 2006, it currently has around 9.4 million Wills registered in their system, with this amount growing every day. At peak times, one Will is registered every two seconds on The National Will Register.
From the 3rd May until the 3rd June, Certainty are running a free Will registration month. Their campaign aims to highlight both the importance of making a Will and ensuring that the Will can be located easily when a loved one passes away.
According to data from The National Will Register, around two-thirds of people would not know where to find their parent’s Will. They may also not be aware of their loved one that left a Will or if the Will that they are able to find is the most current one. It is important to regularly review your Will, especially after any big life events.
When a Will is registered with Certainty, the details of the Will are not disclosed to them, only the fact that the Will exists and where it is being stored. Only when the person has passed away can details of where it is being stored be provided. Even under these circumstances, the person who has requested the search must demonstrate that they have a bona fide interest in the Will and provide a copy of the death certificate.
When cases are referred to Treethorpe we regularly conduct a Certainty Will Search to ensure that a valid Will has not been left. This confirms that a person has passed away ‘intestate’ (without leaving a valid Will) and that the ‘Rules of Intestacy’ must be applied to trace the beneficiaries to the Estate. By running this search, we are able to offer our clients the peace of mind that no valid Will has been left and confirm their entitlement to the estate.
Even when a Will has been made, it is important to establish that the Will is in fact the ‘Last Will and Testament’ and that no later Will has been made that would supersede this. This is especially important if the Will in question has not been made recently.
A Certainty Will Search searches for Wills that have been registered on The National Will Register and for Wills that have not yet been registered. The most common search that Treethorpe will conduct is the ‘Will Search Combined’. This searches the Will Register, performs a REACH search (a nationwide, geographically targeted search for Wills that have not been registered amongst law firms and Professional Will Writers from IPW and SWW) and places a notice on the Missing Will Notice Board issued to The National Will Register member solicitors.
More information about registering your Will can be found on the National Will Register website.
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