Wills and Probate Services

Please remember – VAT is payable at 20% (the current prevailing rate) on our professional charges.

Puzzled by Probate

Who undertakes the work...?

The firm’s work is overseen and managed by Stuart Fantham. Stuart is a Solicitor who qualified in 1988 and has worked both in private practice as well as an in-house Solicitor.

Stuart has entrusted the firm’s Private Client work (which includes the preparation of Wills, dealing with Probate and preparing Lasting Powers of Attorney) to Anita Cook (formerly Farquhar).

Anita is a Chartered Legal Executive who qualified in 2003 and has worked in Private Practice since then before joining this firm.

Anita has extensive experience in all Private Client matters dealing with both simple and complex Wills, advising on inheritance tax and preparing Lasting Powers of Attorney.

In relation to her Probate work, Anita has extensive experience in dealing with both simple and complex estates, ranging from estates with simple assets not requiring any inheritance tax to be paid to more complex estates with a number of Executors, a number of Beneficiaries and a host of assets of different types with ranging values.

Some estates will qualify for relief depending on the circumstances – this will include such things as Residential Nil Rate Band Relief and Anita is certainly able to advise on the availability of this and other relief.

What is involved...?

When someone passes away, it is generally the case that they will have appointed Executors via a properly drafted Will who will deal with the assets and liabilities of the deceased as part of their estate. It is necessary to prove that the deceased persons Will was the Last Will and Testament and validly appoints the Executor or Executors named in the same.

This is generally called obtaining “a Grant of Probate”.

There may be circumstances where a “Grant of Letters of Administration” is obtained instead – this would generally be where there was either no valid Will or the deceased’s Will appointed someone who was no longer able to act as an Executor.

For the purposes of this section of this website, we will assume that a normal Grant of Probate is being obtained.

As part of the work you will instruct us to undertake, we will carry out the following;

- Meet with you to obtain initial information about the deceased, their circumstances (financial and otherwise) and to review the deceased’s Will if one is available at this initial meeting.

- Identify the legally appointed executors or administrators

- Let you know the type of grant application you will need

- Advise you as to what further information we will need to prepare the application for the grant

- Discuss with you the options as to the work you wish us to undertake in securing the Grant of Probate and dealing with any administration thereafter.

- Discussing with you inheritance tax and possible relief available

- Contact the third party asset holders (eg the Bank, Share administrators, etc) where required to obtain values of those assets

- Complete the probate application forms, the Legal Statement and any submissions to the Inheritance Tax office

- Once approved, submit the application and pay the requisite fees (fees information appears separately below)

- Once the grant has been issued, check the details recorded are correct and provide you with originals

The list above assumes we are just dealing with your instructions to obtain a Grant of Probate or a Grant of Letters of Administration.

You may instruct us to deal with further work thereafter.

If we are dealing with the full administration of an estate for you once the Grant is in place, we will be:

- completing the inheritance tax return and arranging to pay inheritance tax from the estate assets

- dealing with all correspondence with HM Revenue and Customs

- collect in the assets

- pay any debts and expenses

- deal with any post-death tax issues

- prepare estate administration accounts and

- distribute the estate in accordance with the terms of the Will or, if there is no Will, the laws of intestacy.

Our fees will not include:

- carrying out the administration of an estate in relation to a contested estate.

- additional charges if specific work is required to deal with assets, for example the sale or conveyance of a property within the estate or the redemption of a mortgage.

How long will this take...?

The initial work we undertake to prepare for an application to be ready to be lodged to request a Grant of Probate can take some time to complete as it will be dependent upon a number of factors – for example, the number of assets, availability of information, the response times of third parties such as banks and so on.

We generally estimate it will take 1 – 3 months to secure the relevant information for you and with your help.

Once the information is ready to submit as part of the application and has been reviewed and approved by yourself, we will lodge the same with the Probate Registry for processing. Assuming no Requisitions arise (i.e. questions or issues identified by the Probate Registry) you can generally expect this will take about 16 weeks (based on data published by or on behalf of the Probate Registry) to secure a Grant of Probate.

Assuming we are then assisting you with the administration of the deceased’s estate once the Grant has been issued, we will obviously await, review and check the Grant itself. Assuming all to be in order, you can generally expect it to take about 1 – 3 months for the administration arrangements to be progressed and finalised – this is the work involving securing and releasing funds from various third party asset holders into the estate and distributing the same to the relevant beneficiaries.

What does it cost...?

Depending on the outcome of our initial discussions with you in taking your instructions, our work in obtaining a Grant of Probate for you can fall into one of the following categories;

(i) A time spent basis

This is where we would charge you on the actual amount of time spent in securing the Grant of Probate and (if instructed to do so) dealing with the administration of the estate thereafter.

This may depend upon the nature and complexity of the estate and so;

A simple estate might involve between 5 – 15 hours worth of work putting our fees at £1,125 plus VAT @ 20% (£1,350 inclusive of VAT) to £3,375 plus VAT @ 20% (£4,050 inclusive of VAT)

A simple estate is one which comprises the following;

- A simple Will

- One Executor with one or two beneficiaries

- A limited number of assets all in the UK – for example one house, one bank account

- An uncontested Will

A moderate estate might involve between 10 – 20 hours worth of work putting our fees at £2,250 plus VAT @ 20% (£2,700 inclusive of VAT) to £4,500 plus VAT @ 20% (£5,400 inclusive of VAT)

A moderate estate which is one which comprises;

- Two or more Executors

- Two or more beneficiaries

- A larger number of assets all in the UK – for example, several bank accounts, premium bonds or shares as well as at least one property

- An uncontested Will

A complex estate might involve between 20 - 30 hours worth of work putting our fees at £4,500 plus VAT @ 20% (£5,400 inclusive of VAT) to £6,750 plus VAT @ 20% (£8,100 inclusive of VAT)

A complex estate which is one where there are;

- Two or more Executors

- Two or more beneficiaries

- A complex and extensive list of assets again all within the UK – more than one property, multiple bank accounts and building society accounts, premium bonds, shares and other assets requiring a professional valuation

- An uncontested Will

(ii) Charging on a percentage fee basis

Depending on the nature of the instructions we receive from you as well as the deceased’s prevailing circumstances, you may elect instead to ask us to undertake the work for you for a fee which is based on a percentage of the total value of the estate once it has been assessed.

A percentage we generally charge in such circumstances is 1% plus VAT (at 20%) of the value of the estate.

This would therefore mean that:

- on an estate with a value of £200,000, our fee would be £2,000 plus VAT at 20% (£2,400)

- for a medium value estate at £450,000 a fee of £4,500 plus VAT at 20% (i.e. £5,400) and

- for a higher value estate at £750,000, a fee of £7,500 plus VAT at 20% (£9,000).

Disbursements

In addition to our professional fees, there will be disbursements (sums payable to third parties, such as Court fees) and expenses which need to be paid when obtaining a Grant or administering an Estate).

These may need to be paid initially by the executors or administrators, but can then be reclaimed from the estate.

These include:

• probate application fee of £300

• extra copies of the Grant of Probate of £1.50 for each copy

• Land Registry office copy entries in relation to any residential or commercial property of £3

• bankruptcy searches of £2 plus VAT (presently 20%) for each beneficiary

• possibly Statutory Notices in the London Gazette and the local newspaper which protect executors and administrators against unexpected claims from unknown creditors. These costs vary depending on papers but are currently often in the region of £300 plus VAT (at 20%, ie. £360 inclusive of VAT).