Solicitors fees for administration of estate

[Maggiethecat]

Sadly lost a close family member suddenly last week.
I’m one of her executors and have had solicitor’s letter with fee quote for administration of her estate.
My relative simplified her will and has gifted her house to her kids and there will be monies held in bank accounts gifted in equal shares to them. That’s it, no complexities.
Estimated gross value of estate is about £1.5 million.
The quote is for 1.5% of gross value plus VAT, which based on the estimate would total about £27k.
Never had to deal with this before and have had a quick look online but just wanted to get a sense check here of what kind of fees people have paid.

That's a lot. My FIL estate is double that and very very complex and we are paying an hourly rate we overtook £25k a few weeks ago. I would think for a simple estate the time invested would be a lot less. Is it worth seeing what another solicitor would charge based on time alone?

Feels a lot to me too. Lead solicitor’s hourly fee is £350 plus Vat.
Expect some work will be delegated to junior fee earners but even going off his rate alone that would be almost 65 hours of time.
Will definitely check around.

We have a complex trust in a far off country to deal with which is costing a lot of time. The nq solicitor is doing the donkey work. But we need the STEP solicitor for the trust. It's actually a relative of mine (not the executor) doing it but she's amazing with her knowledge and with a tricky family we can't afford to get it wrong.

Could you do it yourself? Obviously there will be inheritance tax to pay on some of it but it sounds fairly simple.

What musical said ☝️. I did both mum and dad’s - nowhere near that size but it isn’t difficult and the people on the HMRC helpline are lovely.

Would prefer it’s done through a solicitor for the sake of family harmony. Will also try to negotiate fee with current solicitor.

Very similar situation last year. No house or assets to sell just cash in the bank around £1 million and a few dependents. We thought it would be straight forward but the solicitors fees still racked up being around £35k with vat. Crazy but they do give you a breakdown of the costs.

I got a lot of help from the Martin Lewis MoneySavingExpert forums when I dealt with my sisters estate last year. She had quite a simple estate, but it was under the Scottish system, which is a little bit different to the English one.
I just didn’t feel it was right to give away several thousand pounds when it was reasonably simple to do it myself

Another vote from me for doing it yourself if it's a simple estate. I did my parents' and it's really nowhere near as scary as it seems at first, including doing probate. There is lots of helpful info online iirc ie from the probate service themselves, MSE etc. I don't know if there is an upper limit for diy though so worth checking that first.
IMHO some solicitors charge a lot of money, and take a long time, to do a simple job which doesn't require any special knowledge or skills if its just a simple estate, and then charge a small fortune for the privilege.
Just be meticulous and thorough and check everything repeatedly.

I think that’s a huge sum for a simple estate. You will also need to do some work yourselves to provide all the information the solicitor needs eg bank account details so it can be just as easy to complete the whole process yourself.
my DM’s estate comprised house, bank accounts, shares, premium bonds etc and although there was a lot of paperwork and supplementary forms (eg transfer of allowance from my father who predeceased my dm) nothing was complicated and probate office was pretty good with queries.
I understand your point re family harmony, but it’s an enormous sum of money for a non complex estate.

My colleague was quote £8-10k for his mothers estate which was valued at about £20k. So your figure is probably in line with that. Surely it depends on the complexity of the estate, how many beneficiaries there are and the relationship between the beneficiaries as to whether you use a solicitor. My colleague found it very time consuming filling in the same information on multiple forms but its not impossible!

Do it yourself. It’s very straightforward.

It’s surprising simple to do yourself. I had to do for a relative, it’s not that complicated. It’s just form filling and they are pretty self explanatory. Anything I wasn’t sure about I just googled and there was a lot of info online.

The quote is for 1.5% of gross value plus VAT, which based on the estimate would total about £27k.
Ask them to provide another quotation based on billable-hours rather than a percentage of the estate. And get a quotation from another firm, for comparison.

Lawyer here (utterly unrelated area of work but adding for context as I work in a city firm and so I imagine our hourly rates are vastly in excess of those for this firm) - I think that’s an absolutely huge sum for administration of a simple estate considering it’s actually completely doable to do it yourself. We used a solicitor when my DF died but that is only because we were also setting up a trust (I would otherwise have done it myself) - our solicitor charged less than half that for the whole thing including some quite complex trust work. Definitely recommend getting a range of fee quotes.

Interesting what people take to mean 'simple'. OP mentioned a property and shares which means dealing with Land Registry for the property transfer and Registrars so it is far from simple!!

No harm in getting different quotes to compare provided the work is being done at a similar level eg STEP qualified or partner where needed. Also check if the property transfer is included and any exclusions eg if any shareholdings are outside England, what is needed to deal with them and is that part of the quote.

For such a large estate I would build in a review when costs reach a certain level or event eg once the probate application is ready to be submitted.

50%? Surely that can’t be right!

I had this a year or so ago and it seems to be standard - I found it pretty shocking myself that they were able to charge for the work plus a percentage of the estate. I have done probate myself before for a simple estate and agree you can do it yourself but appreciate, for family harmony, it is often sensible not to!

To which end, I would say I shopped around and found a solicitor who was willing to do the work on an hourly fee charging basis and provided an estimate. It was about £10k less than the solicitors charging fees with a percentage of the estate on top of the hourly rate. I don't think I would be able to share solicitors' details here, but I just mention it as it is worth having a look for a solicitor who will do it on a work performed basis given this percentage of the estate does seem to be fairly standard, but is not the only way it can be done. I found a firm that had done work on another matter for my family and they had a probate team that advertised doing it on hourly rates rather than percentage.

As an aside, the estate included property and stocks and shares in terms of complexity / simplicity of the matter.

Good luck.

@blobby10 what work was needed for an estate worth only £20k? Sounds like it was mainly cash in a bank account that fee quote is a joke.
Did you colleague go with them? Please say she didn't!

OP mentioned a property and shares which means dealing with Land Registry for the property transfer and Registrars so it is far from simple!!
OP mentioned a house and "monies held in bank accounts gifted in equal shares". So a division of cash, not limited company shares.

Will the kids be selling the house or keeping it?

If the former, it really isn't a lot of work to get 3 quotes for probate costs and then choose a good estate agent.

We have done it ourselves for two relatives and used a solicitor for another two. Honestly, the solicitors were much harder work for us as they needed lots if info from us then charged a fortune to fill out forms we could have done far quicker.

If the estate is fairly simple, i.e., property and cash in bank accounts, it's a relatively simple exercise to apply for probate. There are some very clued-up and helpful posters on Moneysavingexpert - and £27k is a lot to pay for "family harmony".

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/deaths-funerals-probate

@Allseeingallknowing it was the minimum fee !! Most of the work was transferring ownership of share certificates tbf.
@LemograssLollipop no he didn't use them. Did most of it himself and I filled in the forms as my handwriting is neater than his . Luckily (if we can say that!) his mum had been in a care home for 3 years so no money left and his dad still lives in the family house so no IHT to consider.

She mentioned property and bank accounts, not shares, not that dealing with shares is complicated.

In all honesty, they probably quoted that because the firm didn't want the work.....