PM+M, the chartered accountancy, business advisory and wealth management group, has launched a new service that will handle non-contentious probate matters for clients from its Blackburn office. It will be led by Jane Parry, the firm’s managing partner, and will deal with the administration of someone’s estate, ensuring that it is distributed in accordance with that person’s wishes as well as the relevant legal and tax requirements.
Jane will be joined in the probate team by directors Wendy Anderson and Stella Rosthorn. They will also work closely with the firm’s wealth management, accounting and business valuation specialists to provide an overall probate, estate management and inheritance tax advisory service.
The launch of the probate service has been in the planning for a couple years following regulatory changes in 2014 that allowed accountancy firms to act in cases of non-contentious probate – an area that was previously only open to law firms. The service complements other areas which the private client team already advise on including inheritance tax planning and producing lasting powers of attorney. Many probate matters revolve around the tax and financial elements and so accountants with their proven tax expertise can make this difficult process as painless as possible.
The three-strong team, who are already qualified Trust and Estate Practitioners with STEP, undertook extensive training and sat exams to gain the Certificate in Probate and Estate Administration so the firm could gain accreditation from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales to launch the service. It can now apply for probate and support an estate’s executors through the probate process.
Jane Parry commented: “We are very pleased to be adding this service to our private client offering. Our focus is now on delivering a bespoke service based on our clients’ individual needs. Numerous probate issues revolve around tax and we have a wealth of accumulated financial and tax information on our clients, so as accountants and financial advisers, as well as tax experts, we are often best placed to make this difficult process as pain free as possible.”
Jane added: As we will only be handling non-contentious matters, we see this is an opportunity to further strengthen our working relationships that we enjoy with our network of law firm contacts as the number of referrals for contentious matters will, I’m sure, increase.”
