Any Solicitors on the site - do these fees for a Will / POA seem right to you

[Flyingsouthwiththeswallows]

I am wanting to change my will and for lots of reasons (including issues we experienced with my Parents Wills over a Codicil) just want to replace my existing will with a whole new one.

I was going to use the same Solicitor who prepared my Will 8 years ago and it will just be a matter of removing some beneficiaries and adding new ones.

He wants to charge me £550 + Vat.for this.

He is also quoting £1,200 + VAT for a Power of Attorney - Property & Finance and Health.

Do these quotes seem excessive to you?

If they do what sort of costs do you think I should be looking at?

Get at least 2 other quotes from other local solicitors to compare.

About the same round here, maybe slightly less, but not by much

Where are you? They are a bit high compared to what we charge, maybe 40% over (ish) but you might be in a more expensive part of the world!

Is this a single will ? Or you plus spouse ? Sounds very expensive to me.

Also now that we have everything electronically, a few amendments to an existing Will doesn’t take any longer than a codicil, and sometimes less time, so no justification for charging as if it’s a whole new Will

Its about hat we paid about 4 years ago for POAs for Health and the financial ones for both of us plus updated wills. We also had some advice about inheritance tax and our Trusts we had set up updated. We definately had 2 appointments and possibly a third one.

LPA forms have improved a lot in the last few years which is why most people’s charges have gone down.

Including IHT advice it’s not bad.

Look up Marlow Wills, OP. She's a Mumsnetter and did my Will for me for much, much less than that. I can highly recommend her.

It's what we charge for a will (2 house work). LPAs however you can do yourself online for free barring the £82 per power payable to the government.

DH and I have just done ours - Total £750 inclusive of VAT, this includes 2 X wills and 2 X Power of Attorny. We are thought that was quite expensive, yours seem extortionate!

Paid same price for both POAs (London)

Power of Attorney are quite straightforward you can do them yourself without needing a solicitor, particularly as it doesn't sound as if it is time urgent. Just download the forms and work through them. Do both the financial and care ones. Think it was about £400 for both types for both parents. If there is a problem then when you submit them you will be informed. Wills are a different issue and you would be better getting someone to draw them up for you.

I normally charge £160 for a single will, £250 for a pair of standard mirrors.

LPAs are £225 if that's all I'm doing but I charge progressively less if I'm making more than one, as there's a lot of repetition.

The reason I can charge a lot less is that I'm freelance (having worked in high street practices charging approx 3 times what I can afford to charge now as I work from home)

Thank you all.

Fortunately it is time critical as something has shown up on a recent scan which might result in surgery. I react badly to Anasthetic & Sedatives, so know I am not a great surgery risk.

I agree with you Namechange. I was very happy payiing for my original wills. I needed advice on a number of issues and chose someone I trusted. But I am not so happy this time. It will take them a fraction of the time to just change the details of a few beneficiaries and I can't help feeling I am being ripped off.

Thank you for the info of Marlow Wills HollowTalk. I will probably go ahead with my appointment tomorrow and just suck up the cost as my will needs signing before the weekend. However, my Daughter needs to make her Will and I will suggest she contacts them. I will also get a quote from them for my LPA.

@Flyingsouthwiththeswallows Mumblechum0 who wrote the post above yours is Marlow Wills.
She did ours very quickly and I highly recommend.

for the surgery. A health scare does focus the mind on these things.

I hope getting this sorted takes away some of the worry.

My firm is in London and fees are:

£400 plus VAT for mirror wills
Then LPAs, for all 4 we would probably charge £1,200 plus VAT but if clients instructed us to do all of them we would reduce the fees again to £1,400 plus VAT.

Also, we would charge the same for a new will (replacing that which we originally drew up) as we would for a codicil - £125 plus VAT each.
Do try to negotiate- the fees seem very high.

The £550 for wills seems on the high side for straightforward wills in a high street practice. You may pay more if going for a bigger name.

You can do the POA yourself without paying that stupid money. Get the forms from office of public guardianship and it's about £125 for each.

Marlow wills are not solicitors, she is a legal executive.

You can do the POA yourself without paying that stupid money. Get the forms from office of public guardianship and it's about £125 for each

There are some provisions that people don’t generally know to put in when they do LPAs personally and that causes problems later on, plus the OP wants it done ASAP because of her health problems, and a huge number of personal applications are rejected. So in this case it’s probably not a waste of money, even though the fees are a bit much in my opinion.

Very, very expensive compared to my firm, but I'm based in the far North!