One of our clients has received a letter of a review with 2 weeks notice. The link below is to a letter they received from the SRA giving them notice of the review & setting out what will happen, the agenda for the review and what they will be reviewing. It includes all relevant policy documents, review of files and interview of staff. Nothing triggered this. The firm was picked at random. Shout if you need help - not with the law, but with the compliance policies.
What will happen during the SRA visit?
They have written:
"During our visit we will:
1.
speak with the person with overall responsibility for probate and estate administration matters
2.
speak with a fee earner and review two of their probate and estate administration files
3.
review any policies and procedures relevant to how your firm handles probate and estate administration matters
4.
review any policies and procedures relevant to how your firm maintains the continuing competence of its fee earners
5.
review a selection of training records for managers and fee earners who do probate and estate administration work
6.
review the firm’s most recent accountant’s report and any letter of recommendations from the accountant.
We will randomly select the fee earner to speak with on the day and confirm them to you at the beginning of the visit.
On the day of the visit, you need to provide us with:
*
a list of all fee earners who work on probate and estate administration matters and their availability to meet with us
*
a list of all probate and estate administration matters opened since February 2022. For each matter, the list should provide:
*
whether the firm/fee earner is acting as an executor or acting on behalf of an executor of the estate being administered
*
the name of all fee earners who have had substantial day-to-day conduct of the matter
*
the date the matter was opened and/or closed
*
the amount billed or of work in progress
*
any policies and procedures relevant to how the firm handles probate and estate administration matters
*
any policies and procedures relevant to how the firm maintains the continuing competence of its fee earners
*
training records for managers and fee earners who do probate and estate administration work
*
a copy of the firm’s most recent accountant’s report (including the date it was issued), a copy of any accompanying letter of recommendations from the accountant, and confirmation of your year end date.
Please ensure that:
*
the person with overall responsibility for probate and estate administration matters is available to meet with us on the day of the visit
*
we can review your probate and estate administration files on the day of our visit. If you have electronic files, please ensure that these are accessible."
Visit Agenda
Approx. Time
Activity
11.00
Introductions and context.
Confirmation of fee earner we will meet with and files to be reviewed.
11.15
Interview with the person with overall responsibility for probate and estate administration team.
13.00
Interview with a fee earner and a review of two of their files.
15.00
Summary of visit with the person with overall responsibility for the team.
15.30
Visit concluded.
Help?
We cannot help with regard to the law.
But we can help with your compliance policies & procedures. We have helped many firms with SRA AML Audits. We expect the SRA will be look at your AML policies & procedures and your website for Transparency Rules compliance at the very least. They may also look at SRA Accounts Rules compliance and policies around managing Client Account, audits of these and possibly interest policies. We have experts who can assist with all of this. Feel free to give us a shout.
Do not panic. Unless there is serious wrongdoing, we suspect that the SRA will issue after the review guidance of corrective action they require with a time limit for you to show its been done. This is the approach that they follow with regard to AML audits. We will update as we get a better idea of their approach.
Contact Us
Fill in the form below OR
email us: [email protected]
Feedback from a firm after an SRA Probate Thematic Review
We spoke with 1 of our client firms who had just undergone the SRA Thematic Probate Review. The format followed what the SRA had written about (see above). They did also check their compliance policies in their OPM & procedures. They wanted to check that the firm had adequate systems in place & that they were being followed - as well as looking at the probate specific things. They chose our client at random. They are looking here at firms who have NOT had issues - the firms they do not normally get to see. Happy to report that our client passed with flying colours, but was told to update certain parts of his OPM - which we will help them with. https://hunningsconsultancy.co.uk/compliance-services/
