Pros and Cons of doing probate yourself

[TheThinWhiteDutchess]

A close family member has died. They had a will and the house passes to their spouse and any other assets are to be split three ways to three executors.
So the only assets are half the house plus £80,000ish in savings. (Plus jewellery and other personal items). No estranged family members are likely to come and try to claim anything.

What are the risks to doing probate without a solicitor? Ours want to charge about £5000.

Pros: you don't spend £5000. You know what is going on

Cons:you spend £5000. It is a faff. Family members fall out with you over splits in assets especially personal items.

DH's sister did it for FIL. I don't think she found it difficult, just tedious and all the siblings were scrupulously well-behaved.

I did my father in laws myself. Mother in law died 2 years before. I claimed her inheritance tax, so didn’t need to go down this route. Online forms were very straightforward and any queries I had the helpline was very good. If I were you I would ring the probate office and see if you actually need probate, as you are not selling house.

True, I didn't need to do probate for my DF - but it was obvious as everything was in joint names apart from about £2.50 so no estate to speak of.

The house will not count as an asset for OP if it is Joint Tenants, will go automatically to spouse. Took me about 20 minutes to sort with the Land Registry and done.

My mum died just after Xmas with no will.

Not much in the way of assets bar the house. I filled everything in myself and submitted it online, standard probate fee was all I paid.

It helps if you're organised and meticulous, and their affairs are simple and clear. With a solicitor you (can) have to do all the sorting out of paperwork anyway: with my mum's it was just a case of going through her bills/correspondence folder and contacting everyone.

And I've 'saved' thousands of pounds. My uncles and aunt's were horrified I've not used a solicitor, but I really don't see the point if everything is straightforward.

My sister and I did our mothers - the most onerous part was that, after our father died a few years earlier, the house deeds hadn’t been transferred into just her name so we had to do that before we could deal with the sale of the house. Meant it took a couple of months extra but will itself was quite straightforward and DM decided that the two of us were the best pair to deal with it as we were the most logical and methodical and least likely to fall out during the process

We did my mums confirmation (Scottish equivalent of probate) , it was a straight forward will equally split between siblings, house, savings and a couple of very small insurance. Her solicitor that wrote the will had her own bereavement at the time so couldnt commit to timelines and said it was easy enough for anyone to do.

We found the required forms online, we made an attempt and dbro took them and the required documents to the sheriff court, the clerk was really helpful with some wording we got wrong. Dbro brought everything back home and we fixed it, took it back and that was it.

I had the letters of administration back a few weeks ago. The forms are all online, there is plenty of guidance with the forms and I didn't find it that difficult. You can do it yourself and pass any bits you find difficult over to a specialist. I think if there had been IHT to pay I might have paid for some hand holding but that wasn't the case.

I had the good jewellery professionally valued, the house professionally valued and I looked at ebay for the selling price of furniture. There was no agricultural land, overseas investments or fine art, it was mostly easy stuff to value.

Thanks all 🙂

Applying for probate is simply form filling if the will and estate are straightforward. I have applied for probate twice as an executor and assisted friends several times with the application forms. The Probate Office are very helpful if you need advice. The tedious part is getting all the information together to fill in the forms, bank account details, estimates of value etc. If you use a solicitor, you will still have to get all the information together and pass it on to the solicitor for him/her to fill in the forms.

If the estate is large or complicated in any way (such as involving trusts or foreign property) or if there is likely to be any dispute or challenge over the will, then that is the time to involve a solicitor.

I agree. I've done it twice (jointly with my sister). There was nothing complicated in the will and it was a simple process.

Another vote for having done it for Mum and mother-in-law - all straightforward on a simple estate, I certainly wouldn't pay solicitors for it.