Customers of Co-operative Funeralcare are being called by the organisation’s legal services department offering free advice about probate, a committee of the Law Society will hear this week.

The Co-operative denied cold-calling. A spokesman said ‘the vast majority’ of customers welcome free legal advice, and those who don’t ‘can tell the funeral director’.The wills and equity committee will this week consider whether calling the newly bereaved is appropriate, the committee’s chair Helen Clarke said. ‘We have one example of a client who said they did not want legal advice being rung back and offered it. That’s not acceptable,’ she said.

Another solicitor, David Bawn, associate at Newcastle firm Gibson & Co, said: ‘Targeting people who are grieving is despicable and not ethical.’

Nigel Dodds, Law Society Council member for Northumbria, said: ‘It is unfortunate that the Co-op sees fit to exploit their connections with the bereaved to an unrelated market when people concerned are not in the best position to make the best choice.’

The Co-op said: ‘They [the bereaved] were not cold-called. Co-operative Funeralcare would have explained that clients get free legal advice as part of the service. In our experience, and we conduct 100,000 funerals a year, the vast majority welcome the free legal advice. If they don’t want it they can tell the funeral director.’

One concern raised by solicitors is that the Co-operative’s probate service is not regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority. The Co-op’s spokes­man said that, because its probate work is carried out by the Co-operative Trust Corporation, and the SRA does not regulate trusts, regulation would be the responsibility of the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.