Philips Trust Corporation – a statement on the support we continue to provide to our customers.

Between 2013 and 2018, The Cambridge Building Society referred customers to The Will Writing Company, part of The Estate Planning Group, for a variety of services including estate planning. For some customers the advice they received resulted in a property trust being set up and their property being placed into it, with another Estate Planning Group business, the Family Trust Corporation, acting as trustee. In 2018, The Will Writing Company went into administration and their failure ultimately led to the Family Trust Corporation resigning as trustees. Customers were given three options at this point, one of which was to appoint Philips Trust Corporation as their replacement trustee, and a number of customers chose this option. In 2022, Philips Trust also entered administration. 

Over the last five years we have been dismayed by the actions of these organisations and found it upsetting to hear of the position our customers, and many others, have found themselves in as a result. We believe that around thirty customers who we referred to The Will Writing Company have been negatively impacted. Although our view is that The Cambridge has no legal or regulatory liability, the situation has been distressing and we continue to offer assistance to customers. 

Our support for customers started in 2019, shortly after The Will Writing Company collapsed. We made repeated attempts to contact every impacted customer we had referred to The Will Writing Company and offered them an independent legal review of their trust arrangement. This review was conducted by a leading Cambridge firm of solicitors, Ashtons Legal, with the costs of any necessary legal work paid in full by the Society. Where customers accepted our offer, Philips Trust did not become a trustee of their trust.  

When Philips Trust went into administration in 2022, we wrote to our customers reiterating our offer of support. Where customers had made their own legal arrangements to remove Philips Trust as trustees, we reimbursed them for costs incurred in addition to paying their legal fees. We continue to support customers to dissolve their trust or establish new trustees. 

We did not refer customers to The Will Writing Company, nor to Philips Trust, for investment advice which resulted in them transferring cash savings or other assets into their trust.  

We are working with Kroll, the administrators of Philips Trust Corporation, and with other building societies to understand a complex situation and how best to support customers. Despite our best efforts, we are aware of four impacted customers whom we have not been able to contact, most likely due to the contact details we hold being out of date. We encourage any customer who was referred to the Will Writing Company by The Cambridge and who has been impacted by this issue to contact us including your name and contact details as soon as possible at PropertyTrusts@cambridgebs.co.uk  

Our offer of support continues to be available to every Cambridge customer affected.