Solicitor's fees for sorting out will

[almalm]

Name changed for this.
My Dad died last year and his solicitor was named as the executor in the will.
The net value of the estate according to the grant of probate I downloaded online (solicitor did not send me this) is approximate 80000 pounds. The gross value is 3000 pounds more. The solicitor says this is for funeral expenses which actually haven't come out of the estate as I paid them. Is this normal?

The solicitor says his fees are going to be in the region of 10000 pounds. I had no idea it was going to be that much. He says 3% of the estate plus all his work at 200 an hour. By my reckoning that would be around 35 - 40 hours work. Again, is this in the correct ballpark? There wasn't anything particularly difficult about the estate. All savings were in the same place - National Savings. There was one life insurance policy to cash in and apart from that the solicitor had to deal with one utility company.
I suppose I was a bit naive but I have no idea if this is correct or if he is maybe taking advantage of me being in another country.
He says the information was in the "client care letter". I never received it and told him this. Then he said he'd have to see why I didn't receive it. I don't think it was sent to be honest.

I asked him if he had paid the charities named in the will yet and he ummed and ahhed and said "I think so".
I just feel something is a bit off and wondered if anyone can suggest anything.
He also told me the amount I saw in the grant of probate might not be the final amount - it's just how much he declared to them.

I don't know what I should be asking him or where to go from here.

What did your client care letter say about costs

OP clearly says they didn’t receive a client care letter

Well I assumed she had now seen a copy
OP if not ask for a copy
I don't agree with charging a % of the estate
The client care letter will tell you what to do if you are unhappy and I suggest you action that
I would have thought 3k top whack

The funeral expenses come from the estate and you present your bill to the solicitor for reimbursement.

He may have just estimated the cost for probate.
He should give you an idea of the cost before. 10k plus vat is not unusual depending on the work involved.

Sounds like a lot to me considering the total value of the estate. £200ph! Wowzers! I should have studied law!

I'm sorry for your loss.

You mentioned he (solicitor) is in another country? Did your Father reside in the UK? Do you reside in the UK? Was the solicitor a close friend of your Father?

I've had experience with a complicated estate and enlisted the help of a reputable solicitor (UK) to liaise with HMRC on my behalf as I was the executor and if I recall, their fees were about £3000 (only 4 years ago).

As a PP said, you should present your invoice for the funeral expenses to the executor (the solicitor) to be reimbursed. Although if there was cash readily available in your Father's accounts at the time of death, the bank would have allowed the funeral expenses to be paid directly providing the executor provided them with a copy of the death certificate, Will and funeral invoice.

My mother in law passed away about five years ago and her estate was much bigger. She had large amount in cash and then had a sizeable house and a commercial property as well as some shares.
My partner (her son) was the executor but the solicitors had to do a lot of work including property valuations, a deed of variation (the family wanted it split slightly differently from as set out in the Will) and obviously an IHT calculation and submission.
They are not the cheapest around but have been the family solicitors for years and the bill was just below £10k. I think your bill is far too high personally.

He has still not provided the client care letter as he only mentioned it today. He says he will send me it.

I am in another country. Dad lived and died in the UK. The solicitor is in the UK. The solicitor wasn't a close friend of my Dad but they had known each other for many years.
I actually wanted Dad to rewrite his will with another solicitor as executor because I wasn't happy about how this one handled a house sale for us.

There was no property to deal with.
All the savings were in the same place. There was one life insurance policy. I dealt with all utility providers myself except for one which was paid out of the estate.
There was something in the will that had to be dealt with - I don't want to put it here because it is very identifying. But the solicitor did nothing about this at all and told me to deal with it and to sort it before he could pay out the rest of the estate as a sum of money had to be paid before he could determine the value of the rest of the estate. I dealt with this myself with help from council solicitors (and actually got nowhere).

There were 3 small gifts to charities for him to pay out and he says he "thinks" he has paid them.

I feel like I am being ripped off and I think it is dodgy that I did not get a client care letter. I had never even heard of this until today.

Is there any point in me getting him to reimburse the funeral costs from the estate as I am the only beneficiary?

Hi,

I work as a private client solicitor. This seems expensive to me for the size of the estate (£80k). Applying for the Grant is usually £1000-ish and full administration of an estate with no property to sell about £4K. My hourly rate is £225 (I don't get paid this much, the firm does).

You need to see the client care letter. If it's not been sent then the solicitor is in trouble as it's the basis on fees being charged. Our clients sign and return a copy before work is done. Also gives complaints procedure, which you may need to use.

Yes, I was also expecting around the 4-5000 K mark - not double that.
I will send him an e-mail now asking him to send the client care letter as soon as possible.

This sounds dodgy AF. I would suggest you tell him to send you the client care letter and in form him that if you don’t get it by the end of the week you will be raising your concerns with the SRA. There are a lot of dodgy solicitors out there unfortunately.

There have been previous issues with him and former clients relating to house conveyancing.

The difficulty here is that the Solicitor is the Executor and consequently the person entitled to administer the Estate, however the proposed fee seems extortionate for the amount of work you have said was required. A professional Executor is entitled to charge for their time but it still has to be reasonable. I would suggest you ask to speak to the senior partner of the firm if there is one and query the fees. I cannot see any reason why he could charge a percentage of the Estate as a fee and an hourly rate on top. If you are unhappy you could ask for the file to be taxed.

Unfortunately he is the senior partner.

What chelseabuns said. Seems pricey for the value of the estate, BUT we don't if there were other complications. Ask for the time sheets.

Ask for a full
Itemised breakdown of costs to date and what he expects the further costs to be. Also ask for written evidence that the charities have been paid.

Even if he is the senior partner there will be a complaints procedure to follow, which ironically will probably be set out in the letter you haven’t received. You need to have followed the forms complaints procedure before complaining to the Law Society.

www.sra.org.uk/consumers/problems/report-solicitor/

If you have not received a Client Care Letter/Terms of Business by tomorrow I would suggest contacting the Law Society. I am a private client paralegal in Scotland therefore the laws do differ, however the Law Society of Scotland allow us to email Terms of Business Letters and therefore this solicitor really has no excuse for not forwarding you a copy. It may be that it has genuinely been posted to you- we are finding at the moment Royal Mail first class is taking over a week to arrive with some clients but this should be shown on his system or file and he should be able to advise you of the date it was sent. As a side - even when one of our solicitors is Executor my firm never takes a percentage of the Estate instead our file is assessed by an Auditor of Court who is an independent fee assessor and they assess the fee against our hourly rate. I hope you get this all sorted out, losing a loved one is upsetting enough without dealing with this added stress.

Update:
I received an email today with a client care letter attached dated 7th May 2019.
Solicitor writes "Here is a copy of the client care letter emailed to you". It was never emailed. Or if it was it did not arrive - checked my email.

He says in the email that he has worked out the costs at ca. 5700GBP plus vat. Don't want to give the exact amount but he has given an exact amount down to the pennies.
He says please confirm your agreement. Also please provide bank details (to transfer the remainder of the estate).
I feel like he is pushing me fast now. Also how did the costs drop from 10K (presumably not including vat as he never mentioned that) over night?

Client care letter says 300GBP per hour (he said 200 on the phone yesterday).
And a charge of 3% of the Gross valuation of the estate for "Care and Conduct"
Costs not expected to exceed 7500 GBP.

So is the 5700 + Vat more reasonable and should I accept this and proceed?
He writes that when I have confirmed my agreement of the fees he will prepare a draft account for my approval. I am concerned there might be irregularities in that draft account.
I'm just not sure how to proceed and what would happen if I am not happy with the draft account.

Don't accept it as yet. Reply saying that you have checked and no such email was received. If he'd genuinely sent it previously he would have forwarded the original email. Ask for itemised timesheets before you agree to any fees.

If this is UK based you can ask for the file to be costed - so the file will be sent to be checked to see if the fees/time quoted for dealing with the estate are accurate. Private client lawyer here and I charge out at £250/hour, but wouldn’t expect more than a few thousand for such a small basic estate. The way the funeral account was dealt with is fine, but if you paid this you will receive the net amount less the legacies to the charities and the solicitors fees.

Claiming a percentage on top of £300 an hour is grossly excessive. Insist on proof that the email was sent out. Check their website for their standard hourly fees.

If he'd genuinely sent it previously he would have forwarded the original email.

Definitely this. He needs to prove he sent it. Even if he did, but you never got it, he should not have proceeded without your signature.

Unless there is so,etching complex in the estate, it is something you can easily do yourself. BIL did his mother's.

Would he be prepared to relinquish his position as executor given the hi cost as a % of the estate or has he already done most of the work?

He didn't send it and admitted on the phone he hadn't.
He said it was a "moot point" as he was named as executor.
So basically he's implying there was no need for me to sign and return the client care letter because there's nothing I could have done about it?