The three questions every adviser should ask

If Consumer Duty's application to estate planning could be reduced to one practical habit, it is this. At onboarding and at every annual review, ask:

• Does the client have a Will?
• Has it been reviewed in the last five years, or since a major life event?
• Do they have an LPA?

Why these three

Between them, the three questions surface almost every estate planning gap that creates foreseeable harm: the missing Will (intestacy), the stale Will (the silent failures - marriage, divorce, property changes, stepchildren), and the missing LPA (the incapacity gap that no Will covers). They take under a minute, they require no estate planning expertise, and every client understands them.

Why recording them matters

The questions do two jobs. For the client, they surface the gap. For the firm, the asking and the logging are what discharge the obligation: a contemporaneous record that the need was identified and acted on - or that the client declined, which is equally important evidence. An unlogged conversation protects nobody.

What to do with the answers

A "no" or "not sure" to any of the three is a referral trigger - to a partner whose suitability you can evidence. That is the whole process: ask, record, refer, log.

Key takeaways

• Three questions cover the Will, the review and the LPA gaps
• Asking and recording is what discharges the Duty
• Any gap is a referral trigger to an evidenced partner

The Kinherit Academy shows how to embed the three questions into your review process - complimentary, CPD-credited: kinherit.co.uk/academy.