Cost of probate and conveyancing

V6Jim

Hi,

My mother died early last year leaving the family estate to both myself and my sister. Total value of the estate is circa £300k.

We left the task of sorting the estate and the transfer of the ownership of the house to our family solicitors.

It would seem that was a mistake as it has taken over a year to sort it out and we have been charged a pretty hefty (we think) £7000 for their efforts.

There was nothing particularly difficult about the probate or the transfer of the house, but the person handling this was an elderly legal secretary who only works 2 days a week. We feel this is why it has taken so long and possibly why it has become so expensive.

We have asked the solicitors to review their bill, but this has only resulted in a lengthy letter which attempts to justify the huge expense. It points out no particular problems over and above the usual legal process.

So, are we right in thinking this is too expensive?
Are we right in thinking this has taken far too long?
Is there anything we can do about it?

I'm pretty sure a competent, full time, legal secretary could have carried out this whole process in a fraction of the time at around half this cost.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

G6JNS

V6Jim wrote: »

Hi,

My mother died early last year leaving the family estate to both myself and my sister. Total value of the estate is circa £300k.

We left the task of sorting the estate and the transfer of the ownership of the house to our family solicitors.

It would seem that was a mistake as it has taken over a year to sort it out and we have been charged a pretty hefty (we think) £7000 for their efforts.

There was nothing particularly difficult about the probate or the transfer of the house, but the person handling this was an elderly legal secretary who only works 2 days a week. We feel this is why it has taken so long and possibly why it has become so expensive.

We have asked the solicitors to review their bill, but this has only resulted in a lengthy letter which attempts to justify the huge expense. It points out no particular problems over and above the usual legal process.

So, are we right in thinking this is too expensive?
Are we right in thinking this has taken far too long?
Is there anything we can do about it?

I'm pretty sure a competent, full time, legal secretary could have carried out this whole process in a fraction of the time at around half this cost.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Far too long and far too expensive.

Keep_pedalling

G6JNS wrote: »

Far too long and far too expensive.

But not unusual, and if you had put this in the hands of someone like Lloyds or nat west the fees would easily been in in 5 figures.

The old fashioned Scottish solicitors who acted for my wife's uncle took 3 years to wind up his estate. There were some foreign stocks involved, but nothing really that complicated.

FreeBear

£7,000 probate fees for an estate of £300,000 works out at 2.33% - Not hugely excessive if it were a large legal firm and it was a qualified solicitor handling the work. But as it was just a secretary doing it, I'd also be challenging the bill.

dzug1

Sounds like OP has already challenged the bill and got nowhere

Savvy_Sue

If you want to make a complaint about the bill take a look at this, and the links which go on from there.

Savvy_Sue

dzug1 wrote: »

Sounds like OP has already challenged the bill and got nowhere

Only internally, and I don't know if that's an actual complaint he's made ...

G6JNS

V6Jim wrote: »

Hi,

My mother died early last year leaving the family estate to both myself and my sister. Total value of the estate is circa £300k.

We left the task of sorting the estate and the transfer of the ownership of the house to our family solicitors.

It would seem that was a mistake as it has taken over a year to sort it out and we have been charged a pretty hefty (we think) £7000 for their efforts.

There was nothing particularly difficult about the probate or the transfer of the house, but the person handling this was an elderly legal secretary who only works 2 days a week. We feel this is why it has taken so long and possibly why it has become so expensive.

We have asked the solicitors to review their bill, but this has only resulted in a lengthy letter which attempts to justify the huge expense. It points out no particular problems over and above the usual legal process.

So, are we right in thinking this is too expensive?
Are we right in thinking this has taken far too long?
Is there anything we can do about it?

I'm pretty sure a competent, full time, legal secretary could have carried out this whole process in a fraction of the time at around half this cost.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Thanks.

Try making a formal complaint using the firm's complaints procedure. You can ultimately ask for the charges to be assessed by an independent person. In particular charges based on a percentage of the estate value are often unfair. As for the charge to be made on the basis of the work actually done.

PasturesNew

With a pair of parents, we let a solicitor deal with the first event (as we still had the remaining parent to deal with on a day to day basis). Cost £000s. Now it's the 2nd one we're doing it ourselves. Solicitors charge £160/hour (+ VAT) for what is an admin job.

When you add up the total cost of death it's horrific. The cremation/funeral, the stone/memorial/whaterver, the probate, the wills, etc.

First one's the expensive learning curve.... 2nd one's easier to do yourself as you're not also minding the needs of the survivor.

Rip off.

Our 2nd probate will probably end up taking just under 3 months to receive.

Crabapple

What estimate of costs were you given to start with? £7k isn't that high as a percentage, but you should have been given an estimate up front, including hourly rates of anyone who would be working on the matter.

Also, are you really saying that the work itself was done by a legal secretary not a lawyer? I could understand some general letters being done by an experienced secretary but there should have been a named lawyer dealing with your case even if some of the routine stuff was handled by their secretary.

V6Jim

Hi,

Thanks for the replies. This is a smallish family run solicitors with, perhaps, 10 - 12 employees? The have been our family solicitors for decades and we have built up a good relationship with us in the past. (The handle our rental property, our wills etc)

I was really just asking, as we have the horrible feeling that this, otherwise really pleasant company seems to have stitched us up!

Yes, the did give us an idea of hourly rates etc at the start, but that was before it seemed to take forever to tie up a pretty simple estate. In fact, if we hadn't been at them every fortnight over the last few months I think they would have been at it yet!

So, yes, we have complained, directly to the head solicitor and got the letter back explaining what hard work it was etc etc....

What should we do?

Jimmy