The latest edition of the annual Smee and Ford Legacy Trends report will be available on 16 June 2020. The report covers the period from 2013-2019, exploring the importance and potential of legacies today, what’s happening in the legacy market and what you can do to optimise your legacy potential.

Initial findings include:

• The number of charitable estates has declined by 4,500 (12%) between 2018 and 2019 and nearly every causal area has been affected
• There was a sharp decline in the number of Grants of Representation which fell by 11% in 2019
• The average time between the date of death and the date of probate has grown from 6 months in 2015 to 9 months in 2019