I have 3 siblings and for various reasons I became sole executor when our father died . He died without a will and had a house, a small plot of land, and a share portfolio. Paperwork was unbelievably chaotic and took weeks to sort. We didn't employ a solicitor to manage the estate at all, only to deal with conveyancing.
Although I had no experience, I sorted the share portfolio, disentangling the paper trail and requesting missing details, arranged multiple valuations, settled debts, completed all the IHT paperwork which took vast amounts of time, applied for probate, managed the sale of the house and land, sold most of the shares which included mediating between the siblings who wanted to wait for the shares to recover value and those who wanted the money now. I applied for and settled the capital gains tax on the house, land & shares. I then distributed all of the proceeds.
I missed one thing from capital gains which I've now sorted and paid. It meant an unexpected bill equal to several hundred each. We still have one major share holding unsold and I told my siblings I was happy if they wanted me to deduct their share from the future proceeds so they didn't have to pay cash, or they could pay me now. Two paid now as they didn't want me to be out of pocket, but the 3rd doesn't see why they should pay for my mistake.
For the 3rd sibling I want to point out that not only was this money owed by the estate, so if I hadn't made a mistake they wouldn't have had the extra few hundred in the first place and also want to point out roughly how much I've saved them. None of us are broke and all have inherited £200k plus. I'm really pissed off by 3rd sibling.
Anybody have a very ballpark figure for how much my input would have cost if we'd handed it all over to a solicitor?