Legacy gifts

More solicitors and will-writers are telling their clients about leaving a legacy than at any time in the last decade, research commissioned by Remember A Charity shows.

Researchers, SPA Future Thinking produced the report for the consortium of 140 charities, which campaigns to promote legacy giving. It found that 65 percent of solicitors and will-writers said they always or sometimes made the charitable prompt to clients, the highest level since monitoring began in 2002.

The research is based on a telephone survey with 232 solicitors and will-writers.

Studies shows that those advisors who prompt people about charitable legacies have a higher proportion of their clients leaving charitable legacies in their wills.

A test by the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insights Team found that three times as many people left a gift in their will if prompted.

The SPA Future Thinking report also found that overall awareness of Remember A Charity’s campaign and communications on charitable legacies among solicitors is significantly up on last year at 89 percent compared with 73 percent in 2013.

It also found that just over a third of solicitors and will-writers always advise clients of the inheritance tax benefits of leaving money to charity.

A further 250 solicitors signed up to support the legacy-giving campaign during Remember A Charity week in September, which was supported by the Law Society for the first time this year.

A letter went out to all key probate solicitors during the week, co-signed by the then minister for civil society Brooks Newmark, asking them to support the campaign by making their clients aware of the option to leave a legacy gift.

The government also changed its gov.uk’s ‘making a will’ pages to directly link to Remember A Charity’s website. The government site is actively searched by almost 60,000 unique visitors a month.