Police pause investigation into £138m family trust scandal affecting Leeds Building Society customers

Leeds Building Society (LBS) introduced customers in branches to unregulated advisers who sold them expensive family trusts which have since become mired in financial complications and are now having to be cancelled at a cost of thousands of pounds. LBS said today it is monitoring the “distressing” situation and hopes the administration process can be concluded as soon as possible.

LBS was among several building societies nationally to have previously had a contract with a firm called the Estate Planning Group, whose arms included The Will Writing Company (TWWC) and the Family Trust Corporation (FTC).

The Will Writing Company arm of the business went into administration in February 2018 but the Family Trust Corporation division continued to trade.

However, LBS members were wrongly told later that year that all trusts had transferred into the ownership of a recently formed company called the Philips Trust Corporation (PTC).

PTC told those signed up to the trusts to pay further money to them to retain them – but the firm then went into administration itself last year. PTC had controlled 2,345 trusts with a value of £138m at the time of its collapse.

Administrator Kroll is continuing an investigation into PTC’s collapse and a court recently extended the period of administration until April 2026.

Dozens of people are understood to have been in touch with GMP about the matter. An update sent out last month to affected individuals said an administrative decision had been taken to close the case but the force would remain in contact with Kroll.

It said: “It is clear that there remains a substantial amount of further work to be undertaken, by Kroll, before it can be conclusively established whether any criminality has occurred.

“Should any criminality be identified, Kroll have several options available to them, one of which is to provide GMP with the relevant information required to conduct a criminal investigation.

“GMP Economic Crime Unit has made the decision to close the record of crime held by us at this time.

“Although the crime record will be closed within our record management system, this does not mean that the case has been concluded. The record will be shown as being investigated by another agency, which is correct at the time of writing and should the need arise this record can be re-opened to commence a review.”

It added: “Kroll Advisory have agreed to contact GMP and provide a report at the conclusion of their review which may or may not include any report of criminality that requires review.

“Until such time GMP will have no further updates to provide in regard to the report held.”

A Leeds Building Society spokesperson said: “We understand cases like this are distressing for everyone involved and we continue to monitor the situation closely.

“We need to allow the administration process to take its course and very much hope that this will be concluded as soon as possible.”