A guide to our probate fees

Fixed Fees

We offer a fixed fee of £695 plus VAT for obtaining a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration (where there is no Will) to a simple estate with a gross value as at date of death which is under £300,000. The work included in the fixed fee is limited to completing, from information provided by you, an inheritance tax return (IHT205) and the oath or statement of truth for executors, submitting the application to the Probate Registry on your behalf and informing you once the Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration are obtained and sending them to you. This quote is for estates where:

• There is a valid, unchallenged will, of which you are the executor(s), and which does not require any further information or affidavits or statements to confirm its validity, or where there is no Will and you (which may be one or more people instructing us) can be confirmed, from information provided by you about the deceased’s family, as the first in line (or one of the first in line) under the laws relating to intestacy (which means where someone dies without a Will) with a right to administer the estate
• You are not a minor and the application is to be made by you and not by an attorney or other representative on your behalf
• There is no inheritance tax payable and the executors do not need to submit a full inheritance tax account to HMRC (as opposed to a short form account)
• There are no disputes that impact upon the right to obtain the Grant of Probate or (where there is no Will) the Letters of Administration
• There are no assets situate outside of the UK
• The application will be to the Probate Registry of England and Wales (including any District Probate Registry)

We may at our discretion agree to additional work being carried out on a fixed fee basis.

Disbursements not included in this fee

These are items that have to be paid to third parties, which you will have to pay in addition to our fee. These typically include:

• Probate Registry fee, which is currently £155 plus 50p for each additional copy of the Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration obtained (1 per asset is usual)
• £5-7 Swearing of the oath (per executor/administrator)

Time scales

Once you have provided us with all the information we need, it normally takes us no more than about 2 weeks to prepare the inheritance tax return and statement of truth for you to sign. Once we have these, signed by you, together with the Probate Registry fee in cleared funds, it normally takes us less than a week to submit them to the Probate Registry. How long the Probate Registry takes to deal with it can vary significantly, and is outside our control, but typically it is about 2 – 4 weeks.

Probate and Estate Administration Work on an hourly rate

Other work will (unless otherwise agreed) be charged according to the time spent, at the hourly rate(s) of the person(s) dealing with the matter, plus VAT.

Our fees for this type of work can vary significantly depending on the amount of work involved. As a guide, the fees for full estate administration will typically start from £1,000 – £3,000 plus VAT for very straight forward estates, £3,000- £8,000 plus VAT for estates where a lot more work is required due to the make up of the estate, whilst fees for complex estates can exceed £8,000 plus VAT. This does not include disbursements, which are payable in addition.

The amount of work involved will depend on the individual circumstances of the matter. For example, if there is one beneficiary who is also the sole executor, there is no land or buildings, and there are only a handful of bank accounts, there are no debts or liabilities of the deceased to be paid, and there are no other complicating factors, costs are likely to be at the lower end of the range. If there are multiple beneficiaries, one or more parcels of land or buildings, multiple bank accounts and investments, other assets, many debts and liabilities to be discharged and other complicating factors, costs are likely to be higher. Before undertaking any work, we will meet with you to discuss the estate and give you a more specific fee estimate

Disbursements associated with estate administration:

• The Probate Registry fee, which is currently £155 plus 50p for each additional copy of the Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration obtained.
• Bankruptcy-only Land Charges Department searches on beneficiaries (currently £2 per beneficiary).
• Statutory advertisement in The London Gazette to help protect the executors against claims from creditors of which they were not aware: (currently about £120)
• Statutory advertisement in a newspaper local to any place where the deceased owned land or buildings to help protect the executors against claims from creditors of which they were not aware: This of course varies from newspaper to newspaper, but is usually about £80 to £100 per newspaper

This list is not exhaustive and there may be other disbursements, which are very much fact-specific to each individual estate.

Please note that dealing with the sale or transfer of any property in the estate is not included

The work we undertake on your behalf will (unless you instruct otherwise) include:

• Providing you with one or more dedicated and experienced probate lawyers to work on your matter
• Identifying the legally appointed Executors of any Will or the persons entitled to act as Administrators of the estate, and the beneficiaries
• Identifying the type of application to the Probate Registry that will be required
• Sending off for any documents required in relation to the application
• Completing the Inheritance Tax return for your approval
• Completing the required application to the Probate Registry in the form of an oath or statement of truth for your approval
• Submitting the application to the Probate Registry on your behalf
• Informing you when the Grant has been obtained and sending you such copies as you require
• Selling or collecting in, and distributing the assets of the estate, in accordance with your instructions

Timescales

In general, the administration of estates that fall within this range takes between about 3 and 12 months. Typically, obtaining the grant of probate takes 6 to 12 weeks. Collecting or selling assets then follows, which generally takes between 6 weeks and 6 months. Once this has been done, we can prepare final estate accounts for your approval and then proceed to distribute the assets, all of which normally takes between about 1 week and 3 months.