More than half of the respondents to a survey of trust and estates practitioners expect that business across all areas of the practice they work in will ‘improve’ or ‘improve significantly’ over the coming year, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) has reported.

The STEP survey, circulated to a quarter of its 16,000 membership every three months, found that 48% of respondents expect the level of trust- and estate-related business also to ‘improve’ or ‘improve significantly’ during 2011, while 44% say that it will ‘stay about the same’. However, respondents are less optimistic about the short term, with only 36% expecting trust and estate business to ‘improve’ or ‘improve significantly’ over the coming three months, and 61% predicting that it will remain unchanged.

The survey also revealed that 43% of practices have grown over the last 12 months. Some 19% are likely to recruit in 2011 compared with 10% reporting that employment is ‘frozen’ and 40% saying that recruitment is ‘unlikely’.

Around 4,000 STEP members practise as solicitors in England and Wales. and there was a 10% response to the survey. Read the report on the STEP website.

Another STEP survey published today reveals that three-quarters of STEP members have in the last 12 months come across ‘incompetence or dishonesty in the will-writing market’. Two-thirds of respondents complained of hidden fees, while the same proportion reported direct experience of will-writing companies going out of business and disappearing with their clients’ wills. Just over one-third had encountered cases where incompetence had led to significant additional tax bills. Other examples of malpractice included a company approaching young mothers in shopping malls and telling them their children would be taken into care after their death if they failed to make a will. One consumer was charged £12,000 up-front for executor services, only for his family to find the firm had gone out of business not long after, disappearing with their wills and money.

For the full report, go the STEP website.