£1500 for solicitor letter!!!

[VeryWeary71]

I am an executor on my parents will as is my sibling. Parental home needs to be sold to pay IHT and other bills. Sibling is refusing to cooperate. Probate is in both our names. Spoke to a solicitor who was actually very knowledgeable about the process of getting sibling removed as executor and getting an order to sell. Could potentially cost 20k which I was expecting but the cost of their initial letter to sibling seemed a bit steep?

Any solicitors here to advise?

Ask them how they arrived at that figure. They charge for their time, and that includes listening to you explain the situation, reviewing any paperwork, not just drafting a letter, which may be included in that.

It's probably reviewing the relevant paperwork, research and drafting the letter (or maybe dealing with the response). What's their hourly rate? That will also be a factor

It won't be just for the letter and will cover all the work as mentioned above and possibly some on account of future costs. Have yiu actually been invoiced or asked for money on account upfront?

In your engagement letter it will set out hourly rates and who is dealing with the matter at their rate.

Wow that’s expensive we paid 7,00 in total and that was with the solicitor acting as executor and doing all the probate .

But that wasn’t contested by the sound of it. Standard probate is going to be a lot cheaper than trying to remove an executor who won’t cooperate.

I’m pretty sure the £1500 will be payment on account not the total bill.

This included having our executors removed because they did not want to do it, but no they did not contest it

It will be this, from my experience. Any new solicitor needs to review the case so far as well as speaking to you before you even start on the cost of drafting letters. It might be possible for it to be counted under the costs of administering the estate (and charged back to the estate accordingly) rather than your personal bill, however. I'd be checking this out as a possibility.
It is eye-watering though. After paying out £10k to sort out the threat of contesting DM's will (baseless, but you can't ignore it so it costs!) and seeing how much solicitors charge, I promised I would never criticise electricians' rates again! Their over-inflated day rate is the same as the hourly rate I was paying my solicitor 😱

Unfortunately solicitor's are very expensive due to charging by the hour, and it's usually hundreds of pounds.

I'm taking my EXDP to court for the DC, and was initially quoted £1,500 for drafting a letter to him, and submitting the application (wish I'd done this myself). He's been a complete arse throughout (no surprises there), so now at final hearing, it's cost me over £20k in solicitors fees.

I'd ask the solicitor to break down the costs for you, and you'll most probably find there are lots of (legitimate) things you didn't realise you'd been paying for e.g. phone calls in and out, emails in and out, any meetings they've had with you, researching the matter, drafting documents etc.

The costs rack up pretty quickly, and I doubt you will find them reducing any, although it may help you to ask for a cost estimate before each stage of the process.

Robbing bastards

Quite.

Charging for work? Yes, robbing indeed, shall solicitors just work for free? It's not compulsory to have one, you can just deal with the matter yourself.

"Charging for work? Yes, robbing indeed, shall solicitors just work for free? It's not compulsory to have one, you can just deal with the matter yourself."

Massively overcharging is my point and also OPs

Solicitors do not overcharge for the work they do - you are paying for their legal expertise through many years of legal practice. Why not just do it yourself and save the expense? Do all the research and make the application etc. oh no you now have someone to sue if it is incorrect - professional negligence insurance is extortionate before we get to overheads and the costs of qualifying!