Is a cold call offering to write or update my will for free a scam?
Yes. Free will-writing cold calls are lead-generation tools designed to upsell expensive and sometimes unnecessary legal or financial products to older adults.
Last reviewed: 1 August 2026
Explanation
Cold callers — particularly those targeting people over 60 — offer free or low-cost will-writing as a way to access your home, collect personal and financial information, and then promote add-on products such as trusts, funeral plans, and lasting powers of attorney at inflated prices. Some operations recommend unnecessary trust arrangements that tie up assets and have significant ongoing fees. In the worst cases, callers attempt to insert themselves or an affiliated company as executor or financial adviser. Legitimate will-writing uses regulated solicitors or licensed will-writers; you initiate contact rather than being called. If approached, decline and contact a solicitor through a professional body register.
The free will is bait rather than the product. The appointment maps your assets, family circumstances, and health — exactly the information needed to pitch trusts, funeral plans, and power-of-attorney packages with confident-sounding urgency. Naming their own firm as executor or trustee is the most damaging upsell, because it can hand ongoing control and fees over your estate to an unregulated business your family never chose.
If a will genuinely needs writing or updating, the safe route is unchanged: choose a regulated solicitor or licensed will-writer yourself, ask for fees in writing before the meeting, and involve a family member you trust. Any adviser who resists either the written quote or the second pair of ears is not one to use.
Common red flags
- Unsolicited call or doorstep visit offering a free will
- Caller requests detailed personal and financial information at the first appointment
- Upsell toward trusts, funeral plans, or other financial products during the meeting
- Recommendations to use their firm as executor or trustee
- Pressure to sign at the first appointment
What to do now
- Decline the call and contact a solicitor through a professional body register
- Never sign any document at a first meeting arranged through a cold call
- Report pushy will-writing callers to trading standards
- If you feel your relatives are being targeted, alert them and suggest using a regulated solicitor
Frequently asked questions
Are free will-writing services ever legitimate?
Some charities and solicitors do offer free will-writing during specific campaigns. These are initiated by the organisation publicly and do not involve unsolicited cold calls to your home.
An adviser has already visited my parent and left paperwork — what now?
Nothing signed under pressure has to stand. Encourage your parent not to proceed, have any documents reviewed by a regulated solicitor before signing, and use any cooling-off period to cancel. Report high-pressure conduct to trading standards.