Cost of wills?

[WearThatDress]

Hi everyone,

DH and I need to redo our wills, and also want to add POA. The solicitor who holds our existing wills has quoted £1330 - £600 for the wills, £350 for POA, plus vat and fees. This seems a lot to me! DH would rather go with a solicitor than do it ourselves, but are these costs typical? Has anyone made a will through a solicitor recently?

I did a search on this board and found Marlow Wills recommended, but we are in Scotland, which they don't cover. Also, we made our previous wills in the pre-internet era, but our (local) solicitors offered a zoom appointment anyway, rather than in-person. Is there any benefit these days to staying with a local firm?

Thanks.

Depends how complicated your affairs are.
Which Will Writing Service is straightforward and costs less that £150 from memory.
Our solicitors charged over £1000 to add in a trust to our wills for a disabled relative.
We have completed all the forms for a financial POA online ourselves without any problems.

I paid £150 recently to update my ( complicated) will with a solicitor

I paid £250 plus VAT recently to a local solicitor for a new will. I had about an hour's meeting to discuss, and changes were made to the draft at my request, but no extra charges. Ring around to get quotes for this.

Look out for Wills month- lots of law firms will do your wills for a donation to a charity. The donation isn’t small, but less than usual fees. POA is easy to do yourself, literally download and fill in forms, collect the signature. It costs something like £90 to register it with office for public guardian.

Thanks all. It does sound like the costs are excessive. We did do the original one under a charity donation scheme, and it was many years ago so I can't really compare costs. The wills are straightforward - basically money to each other, and to the kids if we both die; primarily I want to change the executors. POA I've never done before (and I understand there are differences between Scotland and England here).

Another question! I'm considering adding rather expensive pets into the will. It is highly likely that I will outlive them, but I'd like to make financial provision just in case. Is it normal to put this in a will, or just in a letter of wishes?

I'm in Scotland and mine was free.
I used the same solicitor who had previously dealt with my property purchase. I don't know if that's why.

Ha, lucky you!

We did ours with solicitor for free during wills month several years ago with the proviso we made a donation to the charity there and then or agree to a clause in the will stating we would leave an agreed sum to the charity upon death. We chose the latter.

You didn't let them name themselves as executors did you ?
If so, they'll get their payment later.....

You could just go into WHSmith (or whatever they are called now) and get a Will pack and do it yourself. The most important thing is to get the signing/witnessing right (you all need to be in the same room at the same time when you sign if)

To be honest I think that’s fairly standard for POA. I know everyone will say they got their wills for free, but ours was complicated (trusts, a disabled child) and it cost way more than £600!

No. My DSs are joint executors.
I'd not written one before so thought it was how it works in Scotland.

@WearThatDress those prices are roughly what I’ve been quoted.

Our wills are quite simple so we did an online one.
We have made provision for our dog and have arranged a guardian for him if needed. Our will leaves enough to cover all his needs for as long as needed

It cost £82 to register each POA. If you do both financial and Health and welfare and there's 2 of you then that's 4 x £82. Does the figure for POA include that or will that be extra?

When we did our wills the solicitor told us we could do POA ourselves as long as we followed the instructions to the letter.

That’s true for England, but OP is in Scotland where the process is different

We need to do wills ... what is it called where you protect your half if you die and your spouse remarries? I would want my share to go our DCs, not split with his new wife/step kids?

I accompanied an elderly neighbour recently who wanted to change hers after the death of her husband.

It was very straightforward and cost £150. Obviously a complicated one would cost more.

Doing a POA is very simple and the instructions on the gov.uk website are clear. We did our own.

NB: we are in England.

You can do your own POAs online, no need for a solicitor. £82 pounds each type.

Looks like we can get a combined POA in Scotland, £96 registration fee per person (this is in my solictor's total quote).

Easy to do a poa online if the situation is simple. The cost is rising by £10 each on Nov 17th., so an extra £40 for all 4. You have to be very careful when you complete the form, as they reject if there are any errors.

Unless you have a really complicated estate and need advice on avoiding tax, trusts, etc. just do it yourself. Wills are so simple to do for free. Obviously POA can't be done or free but doing the basic registering of it is fairly straightforward.

I did mine with coop in 2022 and it was £150, would have been £400 for trust wills. That was just me.

I'm definitely thinking it's not necessary for us to pay anywhere near the quoted amount. Will have to do some ringing round, or bite the bullet and do our own.

What's a trust will?