Thousands of families have been left unable to sell their houses after being mis-sold trusts in a scandal which has been described as ‘the next Post Office’.
Scottish law firm WW&J McClure Limited (McClure) sold family protection trusts to couples across the country, usually offered as an add-on to a free will writing service.
The solicitors claimed the trusts would protect clients’ houses from being used by their local council in the event they were taken into care.
However, as families have found out, the trusts were sold on a false promise, offering no real protection against the powers of local authorities.
As part of the scheme solicitors at the firm were listed as trustees and had their names put on land registry documents for the properties.
But in 2021, McClure went into administration and transferred a mountain of files to Jones Whyte solicitors – a firm set up with some of McClure’s previous staff members.
Over the past four years many of McClure’s clients, unaware that their files had been transferred to the new solicitors, have since been contacted by Jonas Whyte as the new firm painstakingly contacts each customer.
Those who have been contacted found they have been left with its solicitor’s names on the deeds to their houses, preventing them from downsizing or moving out of homes which had become unfit for purpose.
Lee, 50, and Bea Jackson, 56, spent thousands of pounds setting up and then getting out of their trust which they set up to give financial security for their children
Janice Brunton had been diagnosed with stage three cancer when she purchased a family protection trust from McClure in 2020
Having already spent thousands of pounds to set up the trusts, they have now been forced to pay thousands more to try and unwind them.
Some 23,000 customers are thought to have purchased trusts from McClure, leaving each solicitor at the firm with their name on the deeds to an estimated 5,000 houses in the UK.
It has been described as ‘the next Post Office Horizon scandal’ after more than 900 sub-postmasters were prosecuted between 1999 and 2015 after faulty accounting software made it look as though money was missing from their accounts.
Hundreds are still waiting for their payouts from the government over their wrongful convictions.
Many McClure clients were introduced to McClure by various charities, building societies and estate planners.
These included cancer, dementia and MS charities who signed up vulnerable patients to the trusts which they could not easily get out of.
One of the victims was 72-year-old Janice Brunton, who was diagnosed with stage three ovarian cancer in 2019.
She was referred to McClure by cancer charity Maggies when she asked about making a will.
‘I have a child who is an only child,’ she said, ‘so I said I need to get things organised.’
Jan paid more than £3,000 to set up a family protection trust in 2020 and put in her Newcastle home, valued at £180,000 along with £10,000.
The former debt manager said a solicitor visited her when she came out of hospital after four rounds of chemotherapy.
Jan added: ‘When I came out of hospital, the solicitor came to see me.
‘She spoke about this trust and explained that the council can’t take hold of it if you go into care, which I have since found out was all wrong.
‘I felt like they were pushing people to take out trusts just over £3,000.’
When her trust was transferred to Jones Whyte, Jan then had to pay £340 for the firm to review her trust and for the name of a McClure solicitor to be removed from the document.
She then had to pay a further £1,000 to another law firm to resolve the issues with the trust.
She said: ‘You hope and pray that nothing happens to you while you are sorting the documents out.’
Jan is still living with cancer but says it is not as serious as it had been six years ago. In 2020 she also underwent open heart surgery in what she described as a ‘traumatic year’ for her.
She added: ‘My particular beef is where is all the money, they must have made millions out of this yet they went bankrupt. Where is all the money?
‘I used to work for HMRC in London. I know the head of HMRC, I used to work with him but I retired in April. I would like to think HMRC are at least looking at it.’
Lee Jackson, 50, believes the fallout from the family protection trusts is going to be ‘the next Post Office scandal’
Digital marketing manager Lee Jackson, 50, has lost thousands of pounds setting up and trying to dissolve a family protection trust.
He said he believes the fallout from the family protection trusts is going to be ‘the next Post Office scandal’.
Between 1999 and 2015, faulty accounting software from Horizon led to Post Office branches around the country appearing as if money was taken from the accounts.
Up and down the country, staff members were wrongfully arrested and convicted of stealing the money and were sacked in disgrace.
Hundreds of sub-postmasters are still waiting for payouts despite the previous government announcing that those who have had convictions quashed were eligible for £600,000.
Sir Alan Bates’s long-running battle for justice accelerated dramatically after ITV highlighted the scandal in the award-winning 2024 drama Mr Bates Vs The Post Office.
Sir Alan was portrayed by Toby Jones in the series, which provoked widespread public and political debate over the Government’s handling of the scandal.
Now Lee believes former McClure clients are facing a similar fight to the sub-postmasters.
He said: ‘They were targeting elderly people with the offer of a free will. The solicitors would put the fear of god in you in order to sell you a family protection trust.
‘They said that if we needed to be put in a care home, the council couldn’t take the house if we had one. It is going to be the next Post Office scandal.’
Mr Jackson said he and his wife Bea, 56, were falsely told about how their son would be liable to pay capital gains tax if they died.
In 2018, fearing for their son’s future, the couple put their house into a family protection trust, paying £5,000 to set it up.
‘They drew a diagram and told us our son would be liable for capital gains tax if we died,’ he said.
‘We subsequently found out it was absolute nonsense as you can have up to £1 million without tax.
‘McClure then had their name on the land registry and in effect it belonged to them.
‘I was 42, my wife was 51, we were not in our elderly stages. In 2015 our house was worth £450,000, it is now worth £700,000.
‘We put it into a trust in 2018, if we kept it for 10 years we would be looking at 40 per cent tax on that.
‘But we can’t do anything to the property because they are on the land registry.’
Lee and Bea began trying to dissolve their trust in 2022 after McClure transferred their documents to Jones Whyte. Three years later, Lee said his home still will not be out of the trust until next March.
He added: ‘One problem was that taking the property out of the trust made us liable to capital gains tax and inheritance.
‘A lot of people have been stung for capital gains tax when trying to take them out. We spent £5000 and £9,000 in legal fees in getting out trust dissolved.
‘Most clients were in their 70s, 80s and 90s, people had no idea of the implication. The former McClure solicitors are charging people to sign their names off the trusts.
‘A lot of these trusts were not worth the paper it was printed on. About five per cent of the trusts are valid to the person who took them out.
‘We feel so angry. The chap who sold this to us, I want to slap him. It is shocking. You feel like someone has ripped you off and then taken your house off you.’
Lee said that the majority of the benefits sold to him by the solicitors would have been covered by his will.
The Scottish law firm went into administration in 2021, with an estimated 23,000 customers’ files transferred to Jones Whyte
Anette Riding from Newcastle started a support group for ‘victims’ of McClure solicitors after her mother and father were also persuaded to buy family protection trusts in 2011.
Her father was 69 and suffered from frontal lobe dementia while her mother was 68 and suffered from stress induced blackouts and rheumatoid arthritis.
Both parents were forced to give up work due to their health.
Shortly afterwards Anette’s mother was advised to contact McClure after receiving advice from Newcastle Building Society when she visited to make a transaction.
After meeting a solicitor to discuss a new will, the couple were sold a family protection trust and encouraged to put their £160,000 house into the trust.
She said: ‘Mum went into Newcastle Building Society to undertake a transaction and she came out with a meeting for The Will Writing Company, even though she already had one.
‘The Will Writing Company came out, rewrote her wills, and then suggested a power of attorney which they said they didn’t need. Then they started talking about Family Protection Trusts.
‘They said how it wasn’t just for the rich. Everybody was entitled to it, they said how it would remove the need to pay care home fees. So Mum and Dad put their house in the trust..
‘Mum and dad were advised that two McClure solicitors should be included as Trustees – including on the Land Registry – to quote McClure literature “Solicitors are professional people and they are NOT beneficiaries of the Trust. Like all solicitors they are supervised and controlled by the Law Society”, so they took them at their word, just as they had done with the need for separate Trusts.’
A year later, Anette’s father passed away and in 2017 her mother’s condition was getting worse, so Anette requested to be made an additional trustee.
However despite completing the relevant documents, Anette was not made a trustee.
In 2021, she was contacted by Jones Whyte solicitors, informing her that McClure had entered administration.
In a letter to Anette, seen by the Daily Mail, Anette was told that her file had been passed to the firm ‘along with thousands of other clients’.
Jones Whyte said they were ‘unable’ to carry out any of McClure’s ‘active cases’, saying the amount of business undertaken by McClure Solicitors in the period leading up to its Administration was ‘simply unmanageable’.
Clients were told that Jones Whyte solicitors could not guarantee they would answer the phone or even guarantee a reply to a query due to the sheer volume of enquiries they were receiving each day.
Jones Whyte advised customers to ‘appoint your own solicitor’.
Eventually in 2022, after appointing a solicitor, Anette was able to remove the McClure solicitor’s name from her parents’ trust and their will.
While searching for legal aid, she discovered more people who had been affected by buying family protection trusts from the firm.
She discovered a Facebook group of people whose stories were similar to hers
‘When I joined the group there was about 700 people on it,’ Anette said, ‘Now there are more than 3,000.
‘A lot of people only find out that McClure has gone by looking at the Facebook page and that is one of the things Jones Whyte should have done when they took over the files. They should have contacted everybody.
‘It has been four years since McClure went into administration. The people who are involved are usually in their 80s or 90s and when they find out that this has happened.
‘Jones Whyte also took on a number of McClure staff.’
In the Facebook group, many of the people who purchased the family protection trusts were recommended the firm by charities.
Anna O’Mara has worked with McClure clients to try and remove solicitors’ names from their trusts
More than 50 charities across the country are thought to have worked with McClure to recommend them for will writing services.
Anette said garden centres across the country were also involved in recommending a free will writing service, which would often lead to customers being sold family protection trusts as an add-on.
Anna O’Mara is a solicitor who has helped clients of McClure remove solicitors names from their trusts.
She said many of her clients began to experience issues when they tried to sell their homes because the trustees’ names were recorded at the Land Registry as proprietor of the properties.
The trustees now said to be charging the clients via an ‘administration charge’ to remove the names from the documents – something which Anna has tried to stop.
She said: ‘Most of these trusts are not fit for purpose, there were salespeople who were selling them to clients when in reality it needed a legal approach.
‘Jones Whyte work in a very similar way to McClure, they are not going to be able to solve the problem. We need to raise awareness.
‘Often the way it worked was that people would be getting a funeral plan and then they were referred to McClure for will writing services, which then led to family protection trusts.
‘They sold you a dream. Quite often people were told “if you do this, then you won’t have to pay inheritance tax” and when you look their estate does not reach the threshold, so they never would have paid it anyway.
‘They were also told that if their home was in a trust then local authorities wont take it into consideration for care home fees. This is also not true and in some cases the local authority may deem it a deliberate deprivation of assets and still make you pay for your care.
‘Every single person I have worked with is already struggling with situations in their life, whether it’s needing to move or needing to downsize or going through bereavement. It is compounded by this nightmare.
‘Every single client I know has been left in a state of panic, struggling to sleep – it consumes so much of their life.
‘When it is finally resolved the relief they describe is amazing because it is such a journey to get there.’
Anna said one of her clients is an elderly man who is no longer able to use the stairs in his home.
With a solicitor still named on the deeds to his house, he is now unable to downsize to a bungalow and has been forced to move his bedroom downstairs.
It is estimated that 69 per cent of the clients affected by McClure’s administration live in Scotland.
Stuart MacMillan is the Member of Scottish Parliament for Greenock, the town where McClure was based.
Mr MacMillan said he first heard about issues surrounding the firm during the pandemic.
He said: ‘There was a couple of people who contacted the office and we paid attention to it, but it was only a couple of individuals who had an experience with a lawyer, that could happen anywhere.
‘We then started getting more and more people contacting us so we knew it was an issue.
Mr MacMillan then hosted public events and invited solicitors from McClure and Jones Whyte to speak to people who had been affected.
He added: ‘Between the two events we had about 280 people turn up.
‘Before those events we had engaged with the Scottish Legal Complaints Commission (SLCC)
‘Because of the law at that time, we were limited to what we could say publicly. They couldn’t admit people had contacted them.’
Mr MacMillan has now called for an inquiry, but not a public inquiry which he argued would be ‘long and extremely expensive’.
However he also argued that outstanding cases must be resolved before any inquiry takes place.
He said: ‘I knew that they had to be given an opportunity to get things fixed and finalised. If we have some type of inquiry, that takes away the focus from them trying to fix the problem. It would take time away from doing the job that is needed.
‘At the same time I think Jones Whyte probably underestimated the job they were taking on. They didn’t help themselves either when they got the work.’
Mr MacMillan said that the SLCC had to increase the levies it charged all law firms in Scotland due to the increased caseload caused by McClure clients.
It also led to a change in legislation in Scotland with the Trusts and Succession Bill in 2023.
The bill now allows the SLCC to investigate law firms and allows trustees to be more easily removed.
Mr MacMillan said: ‘In many of the cases we have heard, you could argue the FPT is not the right product for them.
‘You are not talking about houses wroth half a million, nowhere near. It was a product that was legal, it was a product McClure were selling and they were doing business.
‘There is certainly a moral argument to what they were doing was wrong, I think that argument is really strong.
‘Something consistent is the complete frustration, anger and loss of trust. People want to get their paperwork in order so they can move on with their lives
‘There is frustration within legal fraternity, because people asking them if they are part of this as well.
‘They are questioned unfairly because of the practices of a company which is no longer in operation.
‘People want to know this cant happen again.’
In the most recent annual reports published by the SLCC, they confirmed that there had been a high caseload which was caused by the closure of McClure.
A source confirmed that the caseload caused by McClure’s closure had implications on the body’s budget and the levies which it charges on all Scottish legal firms.
The SLCC also attended public meetings in Greenock to provide advice to people affected by the closure of McClure.
SLCC Chief Executive, Neil Stevenson, said: ‘We consider every complaint made to us carefully. Anyone who thinks they may wish to make a complaint about any lawyer or firm can contact us to discuss this with one of our team.
‘There has been significant public discussion about the firm of WW & J McClure Limited since it ceased trading, and we have dealt with a high number of enquiries and complaints from concerned clients and their families.
‘We attended public meetings in Greenock for those affected by the firm’s closure and provided additional support to those who needed it to be able to make a complaint.
‘As well as dealing with individual complaints, we’ve also engaged with support groups, MSPs and MPs supporting their constituents, other legal regulators across the UK, advice and consumer agencies, and Police Scotland.
‘Wherever possible we’ve worked with others to share our insight about how best to deal with the situation to support those affected, and how similar circumstances could be avoided in future.’
A spokesperson for Jones Whyte said: ‘Following the McClure business administration, Jones Whyte were appointed custodian of all McClure files in agreement with both the Law Society of Scotland and the Solicitors Regulation Authority for England & Wales. This is a standard process when a law firm fails.
‘Jones Whyte are not a successor firm and no client of McClure is obliged to instruct Jones Whyte.
‘Our Review Fee of £350+VAT covers the cost of our time reviewing their McClure Trust and meeting with clients to provide appropriate advice. Like any law firm, we must charge for our time. Any Solicitor assisting clients of McClure will do the same.
‘In conjunction with the Solicitors Regulation Authority, we agreed a programme of notification for all former clients of McClure with Trusts. This was completed in May 2025. This has been ongoing since 2021.
‘In the immediate aftermath of the administration, the sheer volume of enquiries received from clients of the former firm meant that we could not undertake further legal work for everyone. No firm in the UK could have undertaken such a task. If people needed immediate support, they were advised to use an alternative firm.
‘Jones Whyte currently facilitate the transfer of client files from the McClure storage facility to affected clients with no fee payable, at a cost of many hundreds of thousands of pounds to our firm.
‘Had Jones Whyte not stepped in to provide this custodianship service, clients of the former firm would be in a very frustrating position – relying on the regulator to undertake such a task (which we understand they do not have the resource to undertake).
‘The crux of the matter is that McClure was a business which failed during the global Covid pandemic.
‘At the point of the administration, Jones Whyte safeguarded the jobs of over 100 members of staff who would otherwise have faced statutory redundancy and a real risk to their livelihoods. No person responsible for the failure of the McClure business is employed by Jones Whyte.
‘Jones Whyte is a multiservice law firm, covering many legal areas. We reiterate that Jones Whyte is not a successor firm of McClure.’
