will execution, solicitor wants to charges thousands...

[blueberrysorbet]

my mum wants a solicitor to execute her will as us siblings are estranged. a solicitor has told her it will cost 230pounds an hour and it will be at least 100 hours? is this right? he has also just charged her for his advice, 80 pounds... is this usual?

please help if you can....

My initial reaction was - no way! But then I found this on another forum (through the magic of google):-

Our cost is based on scale fees - 4.5% for the first £100,000, 3.5% for the next £400,000 and 1.5% of the balance, plus £300 for each beneficiary and £50 for each asset of more than £500," says Phillip Northey, the Barclays director of estates and trusts

Still think yours sounds crazy though, obv I don't know your circumstances buy £230k is a pretty big cut of any estate. May be more complicated if the siblings are estranged as in would need to be traced or are likely to challenge a will.

Re the initial advice, most solicitors offer wills clinics / free initial advice sessions so she shouldn't have paid for the initial session really. If it was clear before she went that there would be a charge then probably not much she can do now though.

Not had any real experience of this, but had a little google for you!
I found this which may help.
Unfortunatly you do say that you & your siblings are estranged, which make the case more difficult.

Could your Mum find a solicitor who will charge a fixed fee for the execution? By charging by the hour, your solicitor may have little inclination to work quickly.

Must be a typo, surely! As for his initial advice, the cost will be based on time spent in the initial meeting and further time in drawing up any letters of advice sent. Sounds like he's only billed for 18 mins (solicitors tend to bill in units of 6 mins).

A bargain really.

Mumsnet thread here about it!

Chessi and TmiEdward - I think mum wants the will executed. The solicitor will be either drawing up the will, or merely witnessing it (executing a will is, after all, the act of signing it).

I think OP means being an executor rather than drafting and witnessing (which is definitely only a couple of hours of work). Acting as executor means putting the provisions of the will into practice which can be more complicated and it is standard for banks and solicitors to charge for this (just not £230k...)

Good idea re fixed costs, likely to work out cheaper (and at least everyone knows up front how much will be coming out of the estate).

thanks... the will is written and witnessed. the issue is that we (siblings) do not speak and have not for a number of years. I live abroad and will not be able to help. Also my siblings are total luddites and have a history of being fleeced rotten/ not following through. and getting into debt, lying about monet etc etc

I plan to complain about this awful solicitor, is that possible? my mum won;t, she is terrified of anyone in authority:( he was horrible to her by the sound of it- my mum was horrified to receive a bill -she spent Christmas in hospital and is very sick hence the worry about wills. my father dies last christmas.

I guess I can ask a solicitor on her behalf? There are no typos btw:) and there isn;t that much money, just a house sale and distribution of savings. my mum did want my brother to do it, but he wants her to go into rented accomadation to save money and give him less work when she goes. nice.

I think there are wires crossed here. When my father died there were significant assets, it was complicated and expensive but nothing anywhere like £230k. More recently my aunt died and my cousin and I who are executors asked for an estimate and it was in the thousands, not hundred's of thousands.

Having said that, not all solicitors offer a free first appointment and it is quite legitimate to charge for initial advice. Also £230/hour is within the range solicitors charge. IT needs to be remembered that a large proportion of a solicitors fees covers their overheads - office space and equipment, rates, staff, ongoing training utility bills etc etc. To a certain extent the hourly rate is insignificant, a solicitor that charges more may work more efficiently so the overall costs are less than when the hourly rate is less and the solicitor works less efficiently.

One thing your mother could do is appoint you or another family member as executor and then when she dies you can choose a solicitor to carry out the work.

Blueberry,

The cost should depend both on the value of the estate and the assets within it.

I have recently been a lay executor of my father's will and managed to negotiate the professional executor's fee down significantly. They can either charge by time, a total agreed fee (to be agreed in advance) or time plus a cap on total charges (which is what I finally agreed).

For an estate of significant value but "simple" assets (i.e property and listed securities, all in the UK), the fee should not exceed 2% really. If there are trusts, illiquid assets, foreign assets or other complex issues, it could be more expensive.

After someone has deceased, you can ask the professional executor to stand down and appoint someone of your choosing. It is not obligatory for them to do so but it is considered poor form if they refuse. On the other hand, your brother and you would have to agree on this, which sounds unlikely!

STIDW,

230*100=23,000, not 230,000.

Were the estate worth £1mio in total, that would be expensive, but not out of the ball park.

not sure where 230k came from, i wrote 230pounds in my op!! and in two hundred and thirty pounds!!:)

i can tell you the estate is not worth anywhere near a million!! and there are no other relatives I know of- its a family trait it seems to fall out and never speak again:(

i plan to contact another solicitor and see what she will charge. if my brother finds out a solicitor will charge 2300 he will be deducting it from the share plus extra for overtime outside his working hours....what a nightmare. and such a difficult topic of conversation. I wish she had gone to citizens advice but she has never heard of them it seems, and my siblings were against it- bunch of amateurs apparently

thanks for all the advice, I am going to read it all again..

Blueberry,

Do you know what the estate is worth, and what kinds of assets it has in it?

The tax allowance (I believe) is £325k, and for a married couple they can use two allowances. If it is below the threshold, it makes everything easier.

It is not rocket science doing it yourself but it can be fiddly and time consuming. In your and your brother's position, it would probably be good to use a solicitor.

It is hard to compare them, though, as, if they charge by time, a slow one will be more expensive than a quick one and some do the estate accounts themselves and others use external accountants and add their charges to the bill. I would ask a few for an hourly rate AND A CAP so that they cannot drag the hours out. The cap is really important.

larry, i think it would be under the 325k- she is a widow so not sure how the tax works.

my sister doesn;t work so she could do it,she has the time anyway- but nobody talks to her either so... my mum prefers to ask my brother as he is a man (!) but she is getting cold feet about what happens after she is gone, ie he does a runner. it seems we have all offered to do it but the others don;t want that.

I have just emailed a solicitor I have used on and off hoping she can help.

I was going to let my brother do it and hire a solicitor myself to deal with him and check his work, but I can't afford it now I see their prices.

Sorry, I think I got the figure from ChessyEvans post. £230k would be very expensive even for assets of a million. It cost about 25% of that in my father's case and it was fairly complicated and drawn out. £23k sounds more like it and could be realistic.

I wouldn't give up on the solicitor as sometimes it can be a false economy, particularly if there are going to be arguments about what a family member acting as executor can claim as expenses from the estate. The first problem we encountered with my aunt's will is that she did it herself and apart from typos the bit where the witnesses sign hasn't been worded correctly. If the probate office query it the witnesses will need to sign an affidavit. That might prove difficult as an attorney is already handling the affairs of one witness and the other is quite elderly. Also we are considering varying the will to save future inheritance tax. That means although we are doing it ourselves we will need a solicitor anyway at least to draft a deed of variation.

this is a nightmare - thanks for all your help. I can see it will get worse as sure as anything no one will trust anyone else.
Think I will get her to call SAGA and citizens advice. thing is she just believes whoever without question, she seems to have given up thinking for herself. and she is so cowed by people now. so its important who she talks to that they are nice with old people...

If it's just savings and a house then £23k is a bit steep. I am a family law solicitor and my wife is a probate/trust solicitor. It should take around 20 hours work. It depends really on what you want the solicitor to do.

I have to get clients to give me financial documents like bank statemets etc all the time. Sometimes I get them perfect - in a ring binder, all in order, and with a schedule. Other times I get a carrier bag full of crumpled up dpcuments, many missing that are in no sort of order. I can take a couple of hours to sort them out, which would cost £500. I try and point this out but some never get the message.
Sometimes on a probate a solicitor is asked to go through someone's home and extract all information about someone's assets. This can be v expensive, thought i souns like your case is not like that.

Sorry for not being able to x100, think my mat leave needs to start sooner rather than later!

Good luck with getting this sorted blueberry and sorry for confusing everyone with the figures!

BlueberrySorbet,

If she was a widow, then unless your father has already used his allowance (unlikely), you will get a total allowance of £650k. From what you say, tax should not be an issue.

I would have thought that you should be able to do the whole thing for less than 10k. As Resolution says, the more you can do the better. Is the solicitor the sole executor or are there also lay executors (such as you and your sibling)?

She can make a new will or possibly change this one. Write off these costs and find a cheaper executor. In the circumstances you describe with beneficiaries that are estranged/ don't get on it's probably better in the long run to get an independent person to do it.
Bank and solicitors are notorious for charging huge amounts but she could shop around.
If it's going to be a fairly simple estate under the hit threshold no trusts or anything else just property and savings it's going to be a fairly simple affair. Unless of course the executor got bogged down in family disputes between beneficiaries.
I would suggest she contacts a few more solicitors her bank and the aged charities, find a new executor. And then write a new will. Old solicitor can just whistle.