Who does what,
on the record.
Signum is the specialist practice of the Standard Index Group, working to the Estate Standard 2026. The most useful thing we can tell you is exactly who does which step — so you always know who is acting, and under which regulation.
Anyone can promise to help. We'd rather tell you the line.
The boundary, in full
Two columns, no small print. Everything Signum does itself, and everything the qualified professional carries inside the same engagement.
- Locate, gather and index your records to the Estate Standard 2026
- Chase missing structural details — a missing policy number, an unrecorded account
- Draft your will or lasting power of attorney from your instructions (an unreserved service)
- Gather what an administration needs — assets, debts, valuations, dates, beneficiaries
- Chase the institutions and prepare the inventories, chronology and factual schedules
- Issue a Readiness Letter: what exists, what's missing, what to do next
- Explain, in general terms, how inheritance tax, probate and LPAs work
- Coordinate the matter end to end, and keep your records current year after year
- Preparing the papers a grant application is founded on (a reserved legal activity)
- The inheritance-tax account, where one is needed to found that application
- The steps that turn on legal judgment — entitlement, capacity, a trust, a disputed will
- Deeds relating to the estate — a deed of variation, a declaration of trust — generally reserved
- Anything before a court — a caveat, a contested will, a Court of Protection application
- Personal financial recommendations — arranged separately, with a regulated adviser
- Acting as your executor, attorney or trustee — Signum never takes the role
You engage Signum once, for one written fee. Most of the work an estate needs — gathering, valuing, chasing institutions, drafting a will or a lasting power of attorney — needs no licence, and the desk does it itself. Where a step is reserved or regulated — the papers a grant application is founded on, the inheritance-tax account behind it, a deed, anything before a court — it is prepared and settled by a solicitor or other qualified professional whose authorisation covers it, under their own regulator and their own complaints route, inside that same engagement. Personal recommendations on pensions, investments or insurance sit outside that engagement: they are arranged with a regulated financial adviser, separately. Your engagement summary names, matter by matter, who is acting and under which regulation. The regulated work is always done by the regulated party.
You engage Signum once, for one written fee. Most of the work an estate needs — gathering, valuing, chasing institutions, drafting a will or a lasting power of attorney — needs no licence, and the desk does it itself. Where a step is reserved or regulated — the papers a grant application is founded on, the inheritance-tax account behind it, a deed, anything before a court — it is prepared and settled by a solicitor or other qualified professional whose authorisation covers it, under their own regulator and their own complaints route, inside that same engagement. Personal recommendations on pensions, investments or insurance sit outside that engagement: they are arranged with a regulated financial adviser, separately. Your engagement summary names, matter by matter, who is acting and under which regulation. The regulated work is always done by the regulated party.
Why we draw it so plainly
The boundary isn't a limitation we apologise for. It's the reason the work is reliable.
The line is the law, not our policy
Preparing the papers a grant application is founded on is a reserved legal activity, and personal financial recommendations sit behind the FCA perimeter. We don't decide where the line is — we keep to the right side of it, and the engagement summary tells you plainly which side each step falls on.
Records are where families actually get stuck
When someone dies or loses capacity, the reserved step rarely fails first. What fails is finding the policy, the password, the deed, the executor's name. That's the gap Signum is built to close — none of that work is reserved to anyone, so the desk simply does it, properly.
One engagement beats a referral
A reserved step is quicker and cheaper to settle on an organised file. It is prepared and settled by the qualified professional whose authorisation covers it, inside the same engagement — not handed to a stranger with a covering note. You're never left holding a half-answer from someone who wasn't allowed to give it.
A free assistant that explains how it all works, drafts your will from your answers, and helps organise what you have — then hands anything that needs a solicitor or other qualified professional to the desk, where it is scoped and quoted inside one engagement. Personal recommendations on pensions, investments or insurance are arranged with a regulated financial adviser, separately.
- Explains inheritance tax, probate, LPAs and the rest in plain terms
- Drafts a will from your instructions (unreserved)
- Helps organise and name your records to ES-2026
- Flags what's missing and what to ask a professional about
It never makes a personal financial recommendation and never does reserved legal work itself — those steps are carried out by the qualified professional whose authorisation covers them, inside the same engagement.
An Engagement Lead, not a queue
From your intake onward, one named Engagement Lead owns your file — the Build Session and Readiness Letter if that is what you came for, the matter itself if an estate is being administered. They record, on the record, which steps are reserved or regulated and who is acting on each. Where a step belongs to the qualified professional whose authorisation covers it, your Lead briefs them and stays your point of contact. You don't get passed around, and you never have to wonder who's responsible for the line.
Start with a 20-minute intake.
Free — a 20-minute call. We'll scope the work, tell you which parts are ours and which we'd coordinate, and what your build would involve. No obligation.
Book an intake