Langdowns Limited and the LEAP Estate Administration App
Langdowns Limited, also known as Langdowns Probate, is a highly regarded Hampshire-based private client firm that provides wills, trusts, tax, probate, LPAs and advice. The firm has been practicing and providing private client services since 2015 before merging with a probate company owned by an accountancy practice in 2023.
The LEAP Estate Administration App is a powerful tool for anyone practising probate. Available within LEAP and LEAP Estates, it has been designed to save firms’ time and effort when they fill in the HMRC IHT400 suite of forms. The app pulls in all the client details of the matter, ready for you to work through each section as needed. Filling out the client’s assets and debts through easy-to-navigate sections populates a complete set of IHT forms and schedules that can be updated at any time, without the need for complex manual calculations or starting from scratch when new assets are discovered.
Having used LEAP and the Estate Administration App for years, Langdowns Limited offered to share its expert insights and experiences with the software, highlighting how it has made a substantial impact on productivity.
Maintaining a high standard of client care
Director Rob Simpson and his team focus on delivering an incredibly personal service for their clients, prioritising direct and accessible communication. Rob elaborates:
“The aim is that we are a nice personal service for our clients rather than a firm where everybody gets a receptionist and are never able to speak to their lawyer.”
This is reflected in their outstanding 5/5 rating on ReviewSolicitors, based on 159 glowing client testimonials. One review stated:
“I was most impressed with the assistance and explanation I got at every stage of the process. Everything was explained clearly and I was always dealt with professionally and kindly.”
For any firm, providing a high standard of client care, personal service and prompt communication requires a significant amount of time and commitment. So, what did Langdowns Limited do when manual probate processes consumed valuable time?
Adopting LEAP to eliminate inefficiencies
Before Langdowns Limited adopted LEAP for managing their client matters, document production, automation and overseeing client communication, they were using manual processes that caused frustration and resulted in a significant bottleneck to productivity. Rob’s account of how the firm used to draft IHT forms and schedules is a notable example:
“It was horrible before LEAP, we were doing it absolutely manually, which was very time consuming and obviously we don’t have to do that anymore, which is a delight.
To redo the whole set of forms used to be horrible, whereas now it’s really easy to change that one entry, just recreate the whole set of forms. Essentially the pressing of one button and know that you don’t have to worry about the maths or recalculating the tax.”
The firm has been using the LEAP Estate Administration App to minimise manual and repetitive probate work for many years and has proven to be hugely beneficial to the team’s productivity, efficiency and collaboration. Rob explains:
“I think the main thing is the fact that you’ve got all of the information gathered in one place as you go along rather than, you know, whatever you might want to do when you’re busy. Bits and pieces of information come in, you stick them in the file and then when you think you’ve got everything you start to put it all together to do your IHT forms or your applications. But of course, if you keep this going as you go along and put every response in as you do it when you get to the end, it’s all there. It’s already done so you don’t have to go back and check. You’ve got it right because you put it in on the day that it arrived. So, it saves a lot of cross checking, that’s a massive benefit.”
Running a smoother, more efficient department
When asked about firms that are still using manual probate processes and are struggling with challenging workloads, Rob shed some light on the impact that the LEAP Estate Administration App has had on the firm and why he absolutely recommends it:
“Because it means that you, as the solicitor, don’t necessarily have to have put in all the details yourself. It does mean that a paralegal or a secretary or someone who understands what they’re doing in the first place can start to enter that data as it comes in, you know, the bank balances when they’re coming in, date of death and things like that.
And it just means that you’re reassured because you can see it immediately. You look on the asset ledger, and you’ve got a complete breakdown of the information you’ve got already there. So you also know what you’re missing, it has actually made more of a difference to the way we work than anything since we started using LEAP. We haven’t changed since”
Elaborating further, Rob went on to highlight the importance of department collaboration and how the app allows the entire team to work on any matter seamlessly with minimal friction.
“If you’re using it as you go along, it allows you to see what’s happening with the file as a whole, such as the information that’s missing. So it’s not only that your paralegals and your secretaries that can help you with those sort of data entries, but it also means that if I have to look at a file that isn’t mine, like a colleagues probate matter that’s been rumbling along for four months, I don’t have to start going through the file. I’ll have a look at the data in the app and I see what’s on the system at that point and it gives me an immediate idea of where we are, what’s happening, what’s missing and all the rest of it. So it’s really good for working as part of a team.”
Langdowns Limited recommends the LEAP Estate Administration App
When asked if Rob would recommend the LEAP Estate Administration App, he agreed he absolutely would and gave it a strong commendation.
“Yeah, absolutely. Anyone doing probate. It’s a huge step up from anything else I’ve ever seen, so it’s great. It definitely gives us the output which we want which is a set of IHT forms that is easy to produce.”
To conclude, Langdowns Limited has praised the LEAP Estate Administration App for making a measurable impact on productivity when it comes to drafting, amending and collaborating on IHT forms and schedules. Rob has recommended the solution to any professional or firm that practises probate, citing the meaningful difference it has made to the way his team works since moving on from manual drafting and calculation.
Ready to see for yourself?
This article was submitted by LEAP Estates as part of an advertising agreement with Today’s Wills and Probate. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Wills and Probate.
