Solicitor

Gimlet

Gimlet

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For wills and probate, a solicitor who will talk to me and tell me the sequence of events in dealing with a deceased person's estate and at least roughly the likely cost before asking me to sign an acceptance form.
The family solicitor has clammed up and will discuss nothing until we sign the forms instructing them to act on our behalf.

All we know is it's £175 per hour chargeable in 6 minute units, or a percentage of the value of the estate. The won't tell us which before we commit, even though they know the approximate size of the estate and the work required, effectively asking us to sign a blank cheque.
 
Gimlet said:
For wills and probate, a solicitor who will talk to me and tell me the sequence of events in dealing with a deceased person's estate and at least roughly the likely cost before asking me to sign an acceptance form.
The family solicitor has clammed up and will discuss nothing until we sign the forms instructing them to act on our behalf.

All we know is it's £175 per hour chargeable in 6 minute units, or a percentage of the value of the estate. The won't tell us which before we commit, even though they know the approximate size of the estate and the work required, effectively asking us to sign a blank cheque.
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Remember that I get the Streetfighter and KTM Jim. (y)

You said so when we met up, don't worry if you can't remember, just let your legal eagle know, there's a good chap. 🤥
 
Is it going to be particularly complicated as I did probate for Mum’s Estate and it wasn’t difficult?
So long as the investments aren’t too complicated and the Will is straightforward, a Solicitor would still have you running around to sell the house and gather all the monies together.
 
Darkness said:
Is it going to be particularly complicated as I did probate for Mum’s Estate and it wasn’t difficult?
So long as the investments aren’t too complicated and the Will is straightforward, a Solicitor would still have you running around to sell the house and gather all the monies together.
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There is a trust to wind up. It's my mother's estate. There is very little in terms of cash or investments but there's a house worth up to £500,000. My father died in 2012 and myself and two brothers inherited half the house between us. The other half was placed in a life trust for my mother's benefit, meaning that the property could not be sold during her lifetime. The purpose being two-fold: to prevent a forced sale if she ever had to go into residential care, and to split the property for capital gains tax, effectively doubling the threshold (therefore, as current tax law stands, the property can be valued for probate at up to £650,000 with out attracting capital gains which my brother would be subject to. I won't because it is my primary residence).

In theory as long as the estate does not exceed 650K, there should be no tax to pay. But we're anxious to get it on the market quickly because that is likely to change next year when the government come out of their Covid dream state and realise what they've done to the public finances.
Essentially all that needs doing is for the estate to be valued. All the cash and investments she left will have been spent settling her outstanding bills and funeral expenses so its really just house and contents. Then I imagine probate needs to be granted and the trust dissolved so the entire property passes to myself and brothers. We can then sell it.

It was the family solicitor who drew up the life trust and I don't know what get-out penalty clause they may have put into it if we try and take the business elsewhere.
 
IMO The solicitor who set up the trust is the best one to deal with it all now as they have all the background detail. However, it doesn’t have to be them and any solicitor can deal with it and your current solicitor would have to pass on the file to a new solicitor. Bear in mind however a new solicitor will have to spend time reading the file and getting up to speed.

What’s the issue? The amount they want to charge? You mention an hourly rate or a % but what’s the %? They should be able to give you an indication of how many hours the work will take after all they do this day in day out. All too often solicitors firms plump for the % and try to push that because they know they’ll get more money than if they charge by the hour and the ‘benefit’ to you, the client, is you know exactly what your costs will be. It takes as long to do the probate on an identical estate to your mothers regardless of whether the house was worth 200k or 2mill.
 
The problem is they won't tell me anything about costs or how long it will take until we sign the acceptance form. They want us to buy a pig in a poke in my view.

I've just looked at Co-op's fixed rate probate service and I estimate about £5000 looking at that.
 
The Trust is a complication I didn’t have, so it would be worth investigating how they are wound up.
The Probate is merely an application to Court where you swear you have identified and valued all of the deceased assets and you shall pay the due taxes and apportion these assets in accordance with the Will.
Provided there is a valid Will it shouldn’t be too complicated. If you and your brother are joint Executors it means you have to both attend and sign everything. Has the Solicitor been named as Executor in the Will?
 
No me and my brothers are co-executors.
I've already closed her bank account and transferred what funds she had in it to an account of my own. I want to pay the funeral bill out of it which will pretty much use it all up. Our solicitor won't tell me whether I can, only saying that they will carry out disbursements when we return the acceptance forms - and presumably charge a fortune for making a simply payment which I can do now for nothing.
 
What’s the ‘Acceptance Form’ Gimlet? Acceptance of their terms of business where they set out their rates or what?
 
A solicitor who is being that cagey about their charges would set most peoples alarm bells ringing
 
I've been an executor on a number of wills over the past few years.
It's not hard to do yourself and a lot cheaper
One thing you should do is keep your mothers money wether it is cash or proceeds of sales in a separate account. The Estate pays funeral bills and any other bills
I found that banks and other financial institutions were happy to hand over the money on seeing a copy of the will,death certificate and my passport
You will need probate to sell the house
Can't advise on the trust aspect
 
I have just done a bit of googling and it sounds like a living trust. I suspect the trustee was the solicitor and the beneficiary's you and your brother. If so on your mothers death the asset transfers to the beneficiary. There is no need to wind up the trust it is automatic
 
Yes that does ring a bell actually. I think you are right. I'm going to make some enquiries locally on Monday.
 
Gimlet said:
No me and my brothers are co-executors.
I've already closed her bank account and transferred what funds she had in it to an account of my own. I want to pay the funeral bill out of it which will pretty much use it all up. Our solicitor won't tell me whether I can, only saying that they will carry out disbursements when we return the acceptance forms - and presumably charge a fortune for making a simply payment which I can do now for nothing.
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The Executors are allowed to pay for the funeral from the Estate of the Deceased. Just keep clear records of what monies you’ve gathered in, and what monies have gone out. I used an Excel Spreadsheet which I showed to my sister. The summary figures on it are what went into the application for Probate, and the Court can ask to see records for several years if they have any queries later.
 
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