Legal Fees – Simple Estates

For simple Estates between 10 and 15 hours work may be required and, on this basis, our fees would be likely to work out between £2,000.00 – £3,000.00 plus VAT based on an hourly rate of £200.00 plus VAT. As the administration progresses we will regularly review the amount of time expended and, if it becomes necessary to revise any estimate, we will let you have an updated estimate of the likely fees to conclude the administration.

For small easy to administer Estates we would normally expect the above kind of estimate not to be exceeded but this assumes:-

• There is a valid Will.
• The Executors will not be arranging for the sale of any freehold or leasehold property – if a property is being sold as part of the administration the conveyancing work we carry out in relation to such sale will increase the number of hours work and, therefore, the overall costs of the administration.
• There are no more than 5 bank or building society accounts.
• There are no other intangible assets.
• The Will does not provide for continuing trusts e.g. a life interest trust or trusts for underage beneficiaries.
• There are no disputes between beneficiaries on division of assets.
• There is no Inheritance Tax payable and the Executors do not need to submit a full account to HMRC.
• There are no claims made against the Estate.
• There are no foreign assets.
• No unforeseen complications arise.

In addition to our legal charges certain payments to third parties will be required. These are referred as “disbursements”. The disbursements we can predict are as follows:-

• Commissioner’s fees for swearing of the Oath – these are generally £7.00 per Executor.
• Probate application fee of £155.00 (but see Note below).
• If additional copies of the Grant of Probate are required, they will cost £1.00 per copy. It would be normal to obtain official copies of the Grant based on the number of assets within the Estate so if there were 5 assets, 5 additional copies would be ordered at a cost of £5.00.

Important Note – Probate Fee Increase – From April 2019 Probate Application fees are to be substantially increased – there may be ways of avoiding the increased fees and if you would like to discuss that with us, please contact our Mr Hughes.

How long will this take?

On average, simple Estates as described above can be administered within 4-6 months of the date of death.

Once you have provided all the papers to us, we would normally aim to prepare the application for the Grant of Probate within 4 weeks – from the point where the application is submitted, it would normally take between 2 and 4 weeks for the Grant of Probate to issue. Once Probate is to hand, any assets can be collected in – depending on how many people we have to contact, that process might take between 1-2 months. Once all assets have been collected in the accounts would be prepared and we would expect to be able to distribute the Estate at the stage where all the beneficiaries had approved the accounts.