A significant parliamentary vote sits at the centre of this week’s briefing.
On 11 September, MPs rejected the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill. The result means that the proposed legislation will not progress and the law on assisted dying in England and Wales remains unchanged.
Alongside that vote, new research provides a useful insight into why so many people either do not have a Will or are relying on one that is no longer current.
There have also been two developments for professionals: an SRA disciplinary decision concerning serious failures during estate administration and industry commentary about the growing commercial value placed on stored-Will portfolios.
These are different types of development. One confirms the legal position, one tells us something about public attitudes, and the others raise questions about professional standards and emerging service models.
They should not be treated as if they all require changes to documents or working procedures. Their value lies in understanding what has changed, what has not and what each development tells us about the way our industry communicates with and protects clients.
Parliamentary outcome
MPs reject the Assisted Dying Bill
On 11 September 2026, the House of Commons rejected the Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill at its second reading by 286 votes to 270.
The proposed legislation would have created a process through which eligible terminally ill adults in England and Wales could seek assistance to end their lives, subject to defined eligibility requirements and safeguards.
Because the Bill was rejected at second reading, it will not proceed through its remaining parliamentary stages.
Assisted dying therefore remains unlawful in England and Wales.
The confirmed position
The Bill was rejected by a majority of 16. This vote does not change what a Will, Lasting Power of Attorney or advance decision can presently do.
The official House of Commons division record provides the result of the vote.
Professional interpretation
Why does this matter to our industry?
The vote does not require changes to Wills or Lasting Powers of Attorney. It does, however, create an important point of professional communication.
Public discussion about assisted dying can easily become mixed with conversations about Health and Welfare LPAs, advance decisions and choices concerning life-sustaining treatment.
These are not the same thing.
Health and Welfare LPA
This allows somebody to appoint trusted people to make certain health and care decisions if they later become unable to make those decisions themselves.
Advance decision
This allows a person to specify treatments they wish to refuse if defined circumstances arise and they cannot then make or communicate the decision.
A Health and Welfare LPA can include authority concerning medical care, care arrangements, where the donor should live and life-sustaining treatment, where the appropriate authority has been given in the document.
An advance decision to refuse treatment—sometimes called a living Will—serves a different purpose. Refusing medical treatment is not the same as asking another person to end your life.
Neither a Health and Welfare LPA nor an advance decision provides a way to arrange an assisted death under the current law.
Understand what the client is trying to achieve
The immediate task for practitioners is not to promote a particular product in response to the vote. It is to explain the available planning options accurately and identify when a client’s wishes require clinical or specialist legal advice.
A client may want to appoint somebody to make decisions for them. They may want to record wishes and preferences, or they may be considering an advance decision to refuse specified treatment. Alternatively, they may simply be responding to the wider public debate without yet understanding which legal documents are relevant.
Those possibilities should not be treated as interchangeable.
A Will practitioner or LPA provider does not need to become a specialist in every aspect of medical decision-making. We should, however, recognise when a client’s wishes go beyond the scope of an ordinary LPA appointment and when another professional should be involved.
The practical distinction
An LPA appoints people to make authorised decisions. An advance decision records the person’s own refusal of specified treatment. Neither document authorises assisted dying under the current law.
Client-demand insight
Two-thirds of adults do not have a current Will
New research commissioned by Will Aid provides a useful picture of public attitudes towards Will-making.
A national poll of around 2,000 adults found that 67% either had never made a Will or believed their existing Will was out of date.
The research also found that:
- cost and lack of time were each cited by 19%;
- 18% felt uncomfortable thinking about death;
- 14% were put off by the perceived complexity of the process;
- 23% of Will-makers wanted reassurance that their children would be looked after;
- 23% were prompted to act by having children; and
- 18% made their Will after buying a home.
What does the research tell practitioners?
The most revealing figure is not simply the number of people without a current Will. It is the number who believe they have nothing worth leaving.
Our industry often talks about estate values, property, Inheritance Tax and the transfer of wealth. Those matters are important, but they can unintentionally reinforce the idea that a Will is principally for people with substantial financial assets.
A Will may also be used to:
- choose who should administer an estate;
- provide for a partner, children or other people important to the person;
- appoint guardians for children;
- decide who should receive personal possessions;
- make provision for pets;
- leave a gift to a charity or community organisation; and
- make clear who should—or should not—benefit.
The communication challenge is therefore not simply to persuade more people to make Wills. It is to explain their purpose more accurately.
If somebody believes they have nothing to leave, leading with inheritance values may confirm their assumption that a Will is not relevant to them. Starting with the people, responsibilities and decisions they would leave behind may create a more useful conversation.
The importance of reviews
Ten per cent of respondents said their existing Will no longer reflected their circumstances or wishes. A review should not start from the assumption that a replacement must be sold. Confirming that an existing Will remains suitable is also a valuable outcome.
Legacy-giving trends
Charitable gifts and the value passing through Wills
Separate research commissioned by Co-op Legal Services provides an indication of the value people expect to pass to their beneficiaries.
People with Wills expected to leave an average of £260,000. Approximately one in eight anticipated leaving £500,000 or more.
Co-op also reported that charitable gifts pledged through Wills prepared by its service during 2025 had reached approximately £102.1 million, compared with £95.8 million during the previous year.
These figures come from Co-op’s own customer and commissioned research rather than an official national dataset. They should therefore be presented with that qualification.
Nevertheless, they illustrate both the financial value passing through Wills and the continuing importance of charitable legacies.
Make space for the legacy conversation
Charitable giving should not be introduced into every appointment as a sales technique. Clients should, however, have sufficient space to say whether there is a charity, community organisation or cause they would like to remember.
The answer may be no, and that answer should be accepted without pressure.
Where a client does want to include a charity, practitioners should identify the organisation accurately and explain the available ways of structuring the gift.
Depending on the client’s wishes and circumstances, that might be a fixed sum, a particular item or a share of the residuary estate.
The wider lesson is that legacy conversations work best when they begin with the client’s values rather than a prepared assumption about what they ought to leave.
Professional practice
SRA fine highlights the importance of everyday standards
The Solicitors Regulation Authority has published a disciplinary decision concerning serious and prolonged failures during estate administration and other client matters.
The solicitor was fined £20,148.75 and ordered to pay £1,350 in costs.
The SRA’s findings included failures to:
- act in clients’ best interests and within a reasonable time;
- respond properly to complaints;
- cooperate with the Legal Ombudsman and the SRA;
- comply with an undertaking;
- maintain proper accounting records; and
- safeguard client money and interests.
The SRA also identified a client-account shortage and failures to take timely remedial action.
What should the wider profession take from it?
This was an SRA disciplinary decision concerning a solicitor and included conduct relating to estate administration and client accounts. It should not be represented as a regulatory change applying identically to every Will writer or estate-planning provider.
The underlying lessons are nevertheless relevant across legal services.
Competent and timely work
Work should be completed carefully and within the timeframe agreed with the client, or within a reasonable period where no particular date has been set.
Accurate records
Client instructions, documents, payments and progress should be recorded accurately and maintained properly.
Clear communication
Clients should be told when work is delayed, when a problem has arisen and what is being done to resolve it.
Effective complaints procedures
Concerns should be taken seriously, investigated fairly and addressed promptly rather than allowed to develop.
Professional boundaries
Practitioners should recognise the limits of their service, authority and competence, referring matters when appropriate.
Not every provider of Will-writing or LPA services is SRA-regulated. That makes clarity particularly important.
Providers should explain their regulatory position accurately rather than allowing clients to make assumptions. At the same time, being outside a particular regulatory framework should not become a reason to adopt lower professional standards.
I have chosen to use relevant SRA expectations as one of the benchmarks informing Elephant Legal’s own procedures, despite the business providing non-reserved services and not being SRA-regulated.
My view
The most important part of the decision is not simply the eventual fine. It is the repeated failure to respond properly when problems became apparent. Good systems should help prevent mistakes and ensure concerns are corrected promptly when something does go wrong.
Developing service model
Is a stored Will a commercial asset?
Industry commentary published this week considered the increasing value being placed on Will banks—the collections of original Wills and associated client records held by established practices.
The article argues that private-client consolidators and specialist platforms are increasingly interested in acquiring well-maintained Will banks because they represent existing client relationships and potential future work involving reviews, LPAs, trusts or estate administration.
The commentary comes from the founder of a Will-bank acquisition business rather than an independent market study. Its commercial claims should be read in that context.
My view on the Will-bank market
There is a genuine business point here.
A well-maintained collection of client records, review dates and stored documents will have more practical and commercial value than an incomplete set of paper files with outdated contact information.
There is also a professional point that should come first.
A Will bank is not simply a list of future sales opportunities. It represents original legal documents, personal information, ongoing responsibilities and relationships built on trust.
Practices should know:
- which original documents they hold;
- where and how those documents are stored;
- whether client contact information remains current;
- how clients can retrieve their documents;
- what will happen if the practitioner retires, becomes unable to work or closes the business; and
- how clients’ interests and information will be protected during any transfer.
For newer practices, the lesson is to establish reliable record-keeping and succession arrangements from the beginning. Established providers may need to assess whether their records are sufficiently accurate to support client service and eventual business continuity.
Commercial value and responsibility
Commercial value and professional responsibility do not have to be opposites, but the client relationship cannot be treated merely as something to be bought and sold.
Communications and status check
Other developments and what has not changed
OPG updates its LPA campaign materials
On 11 September, the Office of the Public Guardian updated the leaflet, flyers and posters supporting its Your Voice, Your Decision campaign.
The resources can be printed, displayed in community settings, included in event material or distributed electronically.
This is not a change to LPA law or procedure. It is a practical communications update following the publication of the broader OPG LPA communications toolkit earlier in September.
The updated resources may be useful to practitioners, financial advisers, care providers, employers and community organisations discussing LPAs with their audiences.
Previously downloaded material should be checked against the current versions before it is distributed.
LPA registration
The Office of the Public Guardian continues to advise that LPA applications take approximately 8 to 10 weeks to process and register, including the statutory waiting period.
Communications should continue to explain that registration is not immediate.
Digital LPAs
No operational commencement date has been announced for the new digital LPA system.
Existing preparation, signing and registration procedures remain in place.
Reform of Wills law
The Law Commission’s proposed modern Wills Act remains under government consideration.
Existing signing and witnessing requirements continue to apply.
Cohabitation and intestacy
The government consultation has closed, but no new inheritance rights for qualifying cohabitants have been introduced.
Unmarried partners do not currently have the same automatic inheritance rights as spouses or civil partners.
Probate applications
The probate application fee remains £526 for estates valued above £5,000.
Current probate and executor information should continue to use the £526 figure.
Further reading
Principal sources
This briefing draws on official parliamentary, regulatory and public guidance alongside research and clearly identified industry commentary.
My view this week
Clear advice and professional responsibility
The assisted-dying vote is a major public and parliamentary development, but it does not change what a Will, LPA or advance decision can presently do.
Our responsibility is to maintain a clear distinction between those documents and recognise when a client needs advice beyond our own professional scope.
The Will Aid research highlights a different problem. Many people continue to associate Will-making almost entirely with substantial financial wealth. If the profession wants to reduce the number of people without an effective Will, we need to communicate more clearly about the people, responsibilities and decisions a Will can protect.
The SRA decision and the discussion around Will banks bring the focus back to professional practice.
Good estate planning is not measured only by the document produced or the future commercial value of a client record. It is also measured by the clarity of the advice, the quality of the records, the handling of concerns and whether the client’s interests remain central throughout.
That is the common thread running through this week’s developments.