Chingford and Highams Park have an older population than the rest of Waltham Forest, and the 1930s semis that back onto Epping Forest were bought by couples who are now in their eighties. Will solicitors in Waltham Forest spend a large part of each week there, on wills, lasting powers of attorney and care-fee planning for a generation whose house is worth more than everything else they own put together. Two questions come up at almost every meeting: how to keep the house out of inheritance tax, and whether giving it to the children now would protect it from care fees. The honest answer to the second is usually no, and a solicitor will explain why.
Lasting powers of attorney are the most useful documents many of these clients will ever sign. One covers money and property, the other health and welfare, and together they let a son or daughter act when dementia or a stroke arrives, without a slow and costly application to the Court of Protection.
Further south the clients are younger and the problems different. Walthamstow and Leyton are full of couples who own a house together but never married, and the intestacy rules give a surviving unmarried partner nothing. Blended families, children from earlier relationships and a Warner flat whose upstairs neighbour is a sister all need a will that says exactly who gets what.
After a death the same firms deal with probate, from valuing the house to the final distribution, and with the disputes that follow when a will is challenged or a relative has been left out. Wills and lasting powers of attorney are generally fixed-fee; probate charges vary, so ask.
Firms writing wills and handling probate in Waltham Forest are listed below, verified firms first. See wills, trusts and probate explained, what a will costs, how lasting powers of attorney work, probate costs and the general will solicitors page.
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