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extortionate solicitors fees?

I am the sole beneficiary to my late fathers £19,000 estate. My father died last year and I hadn't seen him for 18 years despite searching for him for most of that time.
I have just been given the solicitors (who are also the executors) bill for administrating the estate.They charged £7,390.69 for their administration charges!
My fathers funeral cost £4000 and the DWP had £2,500 for an over payment ( for a 10 year period). There was no house involved.
In the end I was left with £4,724.26 from a £19,000 estate. Plus I just had to sign to say that I was happy with the solicitors services before they would send me my check which I still haven't received yet.
I can only wonder if my Dad was aware of the potential costs before he allowed these solicitors to become executors. I only ask this because I just cant imagine my Dad agreeing to let them handle the estate if he was told of the likely costs.
I have already made two complaints to the SRA and ombudsmen about this solicitor in the past because I believe that they have failed to preserve the estate.
They employed an auction company to "store" all of my dads belongings but later, sold all of his belongings by accident, the solicitor informed me that they would be charging for investigating their own mistake.
They have also made a lot more mistakes, too many to mention in fact. I also believe that they have lied to me on several occasions. I am so frustrated, can anyone offer me some advice.
I can provide a list of the charges if anyone is interested. Thanks for reading :)
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Comments

  • Fire_Fox
    Fire_Fox Posts: 26,026 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Combo Breaker
    Haven't you started a thread on this topic before? If so please add to your previous thread(s), it's confusing and time consuming for people to go over old ground.
    Declutterbug-in-progress.⭐️⭐️⭐️ ⭐️⭐️
  • Fire_Fox wrote: »
    Haven't you started a thread on this topic before? If so please add to your previous thread(s), it's confusing and time consuming for people to go over old ground.

    My thread was about interim charges, these the final charges. I'm not going to waste my breath anymore, all these forum rules and regulations are almost as daunting as dealing with a solicitor.
  • Kayalana99
    Kayalana99 Posts: 3,626 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker I've been Money Tipped!
    My thread was about interim charges, these the final charges. I'm not going to waste my breath anymore, all these forum rules and regulations are almost as daunting as dealing with a solicitor.

    Ignore the unhelpful posts.

    The amount of good advice on here is amazing.

    I would be interested in the charges but afaird I have no experiance to help...but maybe posting them would help someone who does have abit of insight to see where the problem is.

    Can't imgaine why it would cost so much !!

    Hopefully thier is something you could do, only bad thing I would say is if you have signed this bit of paper it might mean you havn't got a leg to stand on by complaining as you have signed to say you were happy with them... :(
    People don't know what they want until you show them.
  • Kayalana99 wrote: »
    Ignore the unhelpful posts.

    The amount of good advice on here is amazing.

    I would be interested in the charges but afaird I have no experiance to help...but maybe posting them would help someone who does have abit of insight to see where the problem is.

    Can't imgaine why it would cost so much !!

    Hopefully thier is something you could do, only bad thing I would say is if you have signed this bit of paper it might mean you havn't got a leg to stand on by complaining as you have signed to say you were happy with them... :(

    Thank you so much. I'm sorry about my last post, it put me on a little bit of a downer when I read that.
    I don't think that I am allowed to post attachments on here, does anyone know how I would be able to show you the bill?
  • NAR
    NAR Posts: 4,863 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Highlight text, copy and paste into a post?
  • getmore4less
    getmore4less Posts: 46,882 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper I've helped Parliament
    Post a full breakdown including hte funeral as that seems very high.
  • loubel
    loubel Posts: 974 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 500 Posts Name Dropper
    I've had a read through your other posts to get the back story. It does cost money when you appoint professional executors (and your father was almost certainly advised of this when he prepared his Will) and unfortunately these costs can easily take up a large chunk of a small estate. Professional executors are entitled to be paid for everything that they do, whether it could be done by a lay person or not. This means travel, arranging a funeral, clearing a property etc are all just as chargeable as preparation of tax returns and estate accounts.

    Are you able to breakdown how much of the cost was fees and how much was other costs? VAT, funeral bills, storage costs and so on are not part of the solicitor's fees. What was the hourly rate of the solicitor?
  • dzug1
    dzug1 Posts: 13,535 Forumite
    10,000 Posts Combo Breaker
    Leaving aside the incompetency aspect - the fees do not seem out of this world for a solicitor who is dealing with an estate in a vacuum - he'll have incurred costs locating you for example, will have spent time clearing the house, etc - much of which wouldn't have been of much concern had a family been in attendance

    They would equate to about a week's work.

    I don't disagree with your sentiments though
  • NAR wrote: »
    Highlight text, copy and paste into a post?
    I received the final bill in paper form, so how do I copy and paste from something physical? I can scan, but I can't upload that can I?
  • Kayalana99
    Kayalana99 Posts: 3,626 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 1,000 Posts Combo Breaker I've been Money Tipped!
    The only way to upload it is to upload it to a photo site online then use the insert image on the post options (yellow with mountains)

    http://photobucket.com/ or something...depends if you can be bothered. :p
    People don't know what they want until you show them.
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