Why is this costing £400?

[waltzingparrot]

DH and I have mirror wills. Rang our solicitor today to request changing the name of the executor (currently DSiL) to our two adult children.

They want £400 to do this. Is there a cheaper way of achieving this?

Use the text already given, type it up again, get two people to.wirness your signature, lodge it with the government will deposit service

It’s costing £400 because they’re not going to do the work for free.

As PP said, you can do it yourself.

@SummerIce well we weren't asking them to do it for free but is £400 commensurate with just changing one name in the will? No other changes required. Still, silver linings and all that, if we'd have wanted more than one change they quoted £800.

Sounds an unnecessary expense. You can easily do it yourselves and may want other changes in future.

Seems a lot but if you think the lawyer will see about one third of £400 after expenses then you've some context.

Sorry but that seems totally over the top. Although technically it's 2 wills, so £200 each. Are they also charging for registering them both somewhere or something? You can get 2 mirror wills from scratch for this (if they're simple). Shop around or look online or google an independent 'will writer' in your area. The wills are yours so you can do with them what you like (regardless of if they're currently storing them). You can also amend it yourself as per others have said.

It's not over the top. Remember they have to do all the administration around opening a file, sending you an engagement letter, taking your instructions on what needs doing, making the change, arranging execution, checking it's done right, and then billing you (and chasing you if you don't pay that bill) plus they're liable if there's a mistake. It's not just changing a name and will probably take people across the firm overall about 4 hours (more if you have to be chased on things).

It is simple to do though as others have said so if you want to save money, just do it yourself. If you want the comfort of a solictors doing it so you know it's been done right, then you need to pay for that.