Shock solicitor bill

[MadeForThis]

Hi

Dad died last year. He owned 25% of a house he inherited from his sister. We had to go through probate to transfer this to my mums name.

I have now received a bill from the solicitor which I think is excessive. Although I am happy to acknowledge that we have never been through probate before.

Dad lived abroad so this was the entirety of his estate in the UK.

Would anyone be able to advise what I should have expected as a bill? Average hours of work involved?

The house is valued at £80k so his share is £20k.

Thanks in advance.

You'll have been given an hourly rate when you instructed the solicitor (assuming it was done on this basis and not a set fee), these can vary substantially. There will also be a fee of £215 to apply for probate.

How much was the bill, and have they provided a breakdown of the cost?

You will have agreed either the hourly rate or the fee in your engagement letter with your solicitor. What does this say? If they haven't done so already ask for a breakdown of their time with narratives.

Basically as @ChaChaCha2012 has already said!

Hi

Hourly rate is £150. Have been billed for 17 hours. And 61 phone calls @ £8

I'm not disputing the hourly rate. I was just shocked that the bill was over £4K for a £20k estate.

Is this the usual level of work involved?

We'll obviously pay the bill if it's fair. I'm happy to admit that I might have had unrealistic expectations of the costs involved.

Thats a really low hourly rate. I think its reasonable unless there was some reason they didnt need to spend so much time on it.

Solicitors are incredibly expensive, the only experience I have had with them is simple conveyancing and that cost 2k ish and we went with the cheapest real solicitor we could find.

I was assured when we engaged the firm that this was a simple application. One property and no other assets to list.

The process started in July 2019 and took until July 2020. Not sure why it took so long.

When I spoke to the solicitor in July she said that it wouldn't be a large bill as it was a simple case.

It may be my expectations that have been totally wrong. I expected much less.

I've met the solicitor a few times. Mostly just to hand over documents or sign papers.

Not sure if 17 hours is usual in a simple application??

Our conveyancing was done with the same solicitor and was approx £1200.

We are in N Ireland.

I understand the set fees. It's the time involved I didn't expect.

17 hours over the course of a year sounds quite reasonable to me. If you think about time to read things, write letters/reports etc in addition to meetings and phone calls.

Sounds cheap to me.

Mine is £250 to £320 an hour plus VAT depending on the work and who does it. Pretty much every email or communication of any sort goes down as quarter of an hour.

It gets very expensive very quickly.

We got a quote for probate recently, it's was £1200 plus the probate fee.

We did it ourselves.

I should add, no property involved, and remaining assets less than the inheritance tax threshold

I did probate myself for my mum
I then paid a solicitor to deal with the deed of trust as my mum left her half to my son and my sister and my dad has a life interest so it was updating the land registry and stuff
I haven’t yet had the bill but I was quoted in the region of £300 -£400 inc Vat

I’m sure I also read somewhere that some solicitors that do probate charge a percentage of the bill
I think from my memory’s that this was often the case when it was dealt with by a bank

61 phone calls suggests it was not simple. Do you know what these were for, if he was resident in another country (and non resident in the UK) this would make things more complex. Possibly a query as to how the property was transferred upon his sister's death.

The cost of the transaction doesn't necessarily reflect the value of the estate. The bill may well be fair (and as noted, the hourly rate is very low), but you are entitled to a breakdown of the cost.

I used a solicitor to deal with my DGM's estate. No property but sizeable cash amount. Bill was nearly 5k. Im in Scotland if that's relevant.

That is a very low hourly rate. However you should have received regular fee updates, especially if the fees were going to be more than you were initially told.

I think the main issue is that I was never given an estimated cost. I was advised £150 per hour which is average for here.

I was initially told it was very simple and wouldn't cost much. I'm aware this is subjective. Once probate was completed I asked when I would receive the final bill the solicitor said she would forward it to me once the land registry was updated. (In July) But that it was a simple case and the bill wouldn't be much.

I've arranged to speak to the solicitor tomorrow.

Is it likely we can lower the bill as it's so high in relation to the value of the estate?

Dad was resident in another EU country. But probate only applied to his estate here. I provided a solicitor letter from that country to confirm. So no involvement with international solicitors at all.

The 25% share of sisters house was a simple inheritance approx 3 years before. Local solicitor did probate for that estate and no issues there.

The time delay seems to be down to a query about dads previous address in the uk and COVID. We also updated the land registry.

I would ask to see a breakdown of the work done. You can then see for yourself what the time has been spent on. You should have been given a fee estimate at the outset, not just an hourly rate. Ask your solicitor why a fee estimate wasn't given.

61 calls is a lot.

We occasionally charge a percentage as well but usually only if we're the actual executors and if there was a property but It's not a given.

A word to the wise: if you can speak to the secretary (and they're any good), rather than the fee-earner, it'll save you money as their time isn't chargeable.

I've only had a couple of calls with the actual solicitor. Mostly received voicemails from the secretary then called secretary back and spoke to her.

At the very beginning I asked how much this was likely to cost and was advised that it was a very simple application and would involve a few hours work. Was never given a written estimate.

I've arranged a phone call with the solicitor today. Hopefully we can sort this out.

If I feel like they haven't accurately represented the costs to me how do I approach this?

The only 2 times costs were mentioned at the start and the end I was advised verbally it would be a small bill.

I don't feel like I have been treated fairly.

Solicitors bills are very expensive to individuals. I remember when going through my divorce, an hours meeting plus resulting documentation/ letter would cost me as much as a decent handbag.

I wasn’t given an estimate either but an hourly rate and a “it depends on how complex”/ how long is a piece of string type response. Which I kind of get as they don’t know what will unfold as the case progresses. But I got regular bills of costs to date, which I would also expect for something that takes a year. That’s a chunk of working capital for them if they don’t bill their cases until closure.