Countrywide Tax & Trust Anmeldelser 

This organisation does not meet any of their communication SLA's or respond to telephone calls.

I would strongly advise against using this firm, especially the Tax and Trust department. Other parts of the firm (Probate and Conveyancing) are much better.

I have just received a letter and invoice for £180 for a trust I apparently want registered?? No information about what the trust is for or why I've been sent the bill?? I have sent an email to to company today asking them why they have sent me
this information and more important an invoice for something I do not need or have requested

Update 18.6.25
Countrywide contacted me regarding this issue. I have updated my review due to their swift response. The trust relates to one I opened several years ago with a different company. I would advise, on all future correspondence, you highlight the name of the company the client opened the trust with, not just send a vague letter with an invoice.

Thank you for clarification

Based on my family’s experience, go elsewhere if you possibly can. The one star is because zero isn’t an available option. My dead family member thought he was doing a good thing when he chose Countrywide and he would be appalled by the poor service we have received at every turn. A not exhaustive list of flaws and errors includes:
1. Documents with (repeatedly) incorrect personal details.
2. Documents sent to wrong addresses.
3. Staff who don’t take responsibility, make themselves available, or care about doing a good job, because the flawed business model seems to encourage that.
4. Waiting weeks for emails to be acknowledged, only to find questions aren’t fully answered anyway, replying to say that and having to start waiting for a reply all over again.
5. Insensitivity from staff who had absolutely no regard for the feelings of recently bereaved people.
6. Processes that are inaccessible to many disabled, and older, people with no effort to make any reasonable adjustments.
7. Endless, often fruitless, chasing by us to try to confirm things that we should have been contacted about.
8. Having to start complaints to get anyone’s attention.
9. Email automated reply that tells people not to phone or email as this could result in them receiving even slower service (this creates extra stress as it makes it almost impossible to know what to do for the best when you’ve heard nothing for weeks).
10. Endless extra admin because of
1-9.
This has added up to months of unnecessary misery. Had Countrywide attempted to do an efficient and compassionate job, things could have been very different. Thankfully we are at the end of their labyrinthine, impersonal, processes, have been able to cut ties and to go elsewhere. It will be a relief not to have to wake up each day and try to make a plan to get Countrywide to complete what should have been straightforward. During the last year, I have encountered a few Countrywide staff members who want to do a good job; it must truly be a terrible place to work for them. They have my sympathy.

Hi
Abbie was really friendly knowledgeable and explained everything really clearly. We were really impressed with how things went.

This review applies solely to Craig Lachlan, a director of Countrywide Wills and Trusts, previously The will Expert. I paid £375 on 23rd May 2023 as to set up a POA. This didn't happen. At every point his main concern was to provide an increasingly expensive service, that I declined as I began to suspect he was dishonest. He did call me about 10 days ago to say he would send me the completed documents, but they have not arrived. Another delaying tactic? I have given up hope of any positive outcome, but please ignore all the positive reviews and focus on the many negative ones. save your money..h

I have dealt with three of the Countrywide divisions, so I will review all in order
1) Probate – after my mother died the probate case handler took charge of dealing with all aspects of my mothers’ estate. She was efficient, communicated clearly and kept us up to date with what was happening to the estate. 5 stars
2) Conveyancing – As is often the case when selling a property problems arose. Again, we had clear prompt communication, recommendations as to what to do / not do to ensure that the sale went through as quickly as was possible. 5 Stars
3) Trust – What a disaster
a. Three weeks from probate finished to having a case handler assigned, and then only after several calls to complain
b. Told several times response time to email enquiries FIVE to SEVEN working days, which is just ridiculously slow.
c. The first set of documents eventually sent out after more phone calls. The purpose of the documents is to detail who gets what from the remining estate. These are a set of off-the-shelf documents with the trust name, beneficiaries and the amount. The amount was wrong despite the correct information being provided by the probate team.
d. A week after the signed documents had been returned to the trust team nothing happened.
e. You can try ringing your case handler, but they will always be “in a meeting”, “not on the floor” or “out to lunch”. You can try asking to talk to the team leader, but they are never available or can make an appointment in 5 days’ time.
I suspect that the trust team deliberately goes slowly because they have your money and don’t want to release it, they claim they are not making interest on it but I find that hard to believe.

I cannot recommend this company at a time of sad loss the trust team just add more stress by their behaviour.

Edit additional information
To get the funds paid you have to open a bank account but it isn't a bank account it is a ctt account which only ctt can access.
If you are told you need one refuse save some money

They are nice to you in the start. Once when they have your money everything changes. You have to ask for everything. Nobody give you updates. They act like dead bugs.

EDIT: To add insult to injury, CTT's bot posts a standard response to any negative review saying they are "sorry" and that their client care team can't wait to help. For clarity IT WAS their "client care" team I was dealing with for 6 weeks and they were obstructive and completely useless!!!! CTT's automated response sums up how little they actually care - cannot even be bothered to look at the facts before posting a reply.
*****

Even one star is a gift they don’t deserve! We needed to provide notarized identification from overseas in order to register trusts and wills. I completely understand this requirement, since obviously verifying identity is important. So, my brother and I went to the considerable time and expense of finding a local notary and having them validate our identity documents to create notarised copies. We couriered them to the UK at considerable additional cost, only to be told they had been rejected because the notary was “non-practising”.

What followed was the most bizarre and absurd round of conversations I have witnessed from a supposedly “professional” organization. Our notary was a non-practising lawyer and had indicated this on the copies but this is completely normal - notaries are often retired lawyers and do not have to be active lawyers, something that is clear in the Law Society rules of both the UK and Canada. The “client care” team made a mistake but rather than admit it, went to extraordinary lengths to double down - even going as far as trying to drag up dirt on the notary we used, all of which they later had to admit was nonsense!

We ended up giving up on these people and found another company - who were more than happy to confirm our notarized documents were completely fine as provided! I think that sums this up rather well.

Please stay away from this company - your experience will be frustration and significant wasted time and money.

Extremely professional service always from the team at Countrywide, My dealings have mostly been with Chad Nagra who has been particularly helpful courteous and efficient. All members of Chads team have always provided that same level of friendly helpful professional
Service. Highly recommend

I'm not quite sure how this company is still in business. Four months to get a meeting (that they charge for but it isn't clear what 'service' is provided) and now still waiting for them to sign and send paperwork three weeks after a meeting. If anyone is considering using this company to put a property in trust please, please, please, read these reviews. You would not accept this lack of service from any other company. They respond to reviews on these sites to say complaints are being processed etc or direct you to their customer care team but they don't deal with the complaints. In addition to the fees they charge for a service which doesn't exist, they also cost you thousands in delays and chasing for the sale of a property.

Great service from the company and particularly Hadir who was instrumental in achieving a refund of inheritance tax from HMRC. This was initially paid on probate but was able to be legitimately claimed back via the trust arrangements.

This would not have been possible without Hadir's support and expert knowledge.

They mis-sold a ‘family trust’ to an elderly gentleman friend of ours, with no ‘family’, and managed to steal £2500 pounds from him for the privilege of this totally useless trust.

Total disregard that this would be of no use to him as he didn’t have any ‘family’.

Three years we have been battling for his estate to be free of this trust so we can sell his home and finally move on, and every part of every problem we have come across trying to deal with his estate is because of this ‘family trust’ THEY mis-sold to him when he was alone in his home & could clearly see he had NO family, lived alone, was also elderly and vulnerable!

You deserve nothing less than this dismal review and should be ashamed of your foul selling tactics! Rest in peace Kenneth!

All aspects were clearly explained and efficiently processed.

DO NOT use this company they never get back to you. From November 2024 I have been waiting to here back about TAX to be paid from the money they kept behind. I contacted HMRC and they stated it does not take more than a 2 months and they have held the money since April 2024. Nearly a year and still no answer I want a manager to contact me please. Holly Hillman a Trust Coordinator tells me she will get back to me when she can! is this what you call customer service she took 3 months to respond! how often does she work? How long does it take for you to ask accounts department a question to see if HMRC has contacted them Holly? I also asked how do I make a complaint. I also asked to speak to a manager! please respond I don’t want a
reply about email
client care I want a Manager to tell me exactly what is going on and what happened!

PLEASE READ BEFORE USING THIS COMPANY

My late mother entrusted her estate to be left in trust for my siblings and I. She died in November 2022. At the time of writing this review, we are still waiting for access to the funds left to us by our mother.

The company are extremely slow in responding to emails. They make repeated requests for ID documents, and appear to be charging for any and everything that they do, despite taking a charge from the estate for administration. If my mother had known how poor the service would have been, I'm certain she would have looked elsewhere.
I sent documentation required for the release of the funds 2 weeks ago. I have had no confirmation of receipt, and despite a chase up email from myself, no.reply either.
A general lack of empathy and a shoddy service. AVOID !

George has been my Probate manager for the past 18 months.
I cannot praise him enough for the respect that he showed me during a difficult time following the death of my Dad.
He has been patient and explained things in a way that made sense to me.
Excellent service and one that I would be happy to recommend
Thank you

Hi all, i dont normally do this kind of thing but hope this helps.
My Stepfather sadly passed away Nov 2023.
Fortunately ive never had to deal with this kind of thing before like Probate etc so appointed Countrywide to deal with everything.
What perhaps should of been a straightforward Probate Application & final estate distribution situation turned into a real nasty vindictive dispute with other family members over the last will & testament of my stepfather.
A caveat was registered on the Probate Application by another family member & certain things became unnecessarily hurtful & complicated.
I am so pleased that we had Countrywide in our corner to deal with this very upsetting uncalled for legal wrangle.
George Mathison our case handler really dealt with things professionally. Things finally got resolved this week.
All I can say is that Death & Wills can sometimes bring out the greed & ugliness in people, because you are in grief & mourning it's very important to have a person to deal with things effectively on your behalf.
If I was told 2 years ago that I would go through what I've just experienced with supposedly close family members I would not of believed them.
Still in shock about it all but now life moves on.
Highly recommend this company.
Thanks again

Read the reviews before it's too late!
They take 1month to do each step (reply to emails, send forms for filling in, arrange meetings). Their lack of urgency is either because they don't have enough staff in post-sales roles, or they can't be bothered.
Nothing happens without YOU chasing them.
I only needed 1 form completing by them (as trustees), but have had to endure 4 months of pointless forms, irrelevant information requests, and general lack of action.

I have complained about this on every email/call, but they don't care about customer satisfaction. This is still ongoing, so either they'll react to this review and improve their quality of service so I can up the review rating... or they'll continue to be inept and I'll leave another review to warn off other from making the same mistake that we did with CTT.

Countrywide trust were extremely helpful and diligent and I recommend them to anyone looking to set up a trust. Special mention to Hadir Ali who went out of his way to help me.
Countrywide are a very professional organization. 5 stars. And thank you.