Cost of a will

MinnieCooper

Hi,
I couldn't find anywhere to put this but does anyone know, roughly, what sort of price we are looking at to set up a will? We have had a solicitor out to the house and they want £25 a month for the rest of our lives (50+ hopefully) to set a will, in trust, for our 2 children. We think that this is a lot of money to pay if you end up paying it over 50 years.

We have a house worth around £210K and 2 children and wanted a will to protect our children (in case one of us got remarried or we ended up in a care home).

Any ideas?

Keep_pedalling

I doubt if the person visiting your home was actually a solicitor, who would charge you a one off fee, not the potentially astronomic fee you have been quoted.

Trusts to avoid care home fees should also be avoided, as they are expensive and there is no guarantee that they will work.

Assuming your house is your ownly major asset then IHT is never going to be an issue, so the requirements of your wills will be relatively simple, with the first to die leaving their half of the house to their children, and a life interest to the survivor.

Costs for a local solicitor to draw up a pair of wills should be around £300

Keep_pedalling

Have a read of this thread as a warning about companies promising to protect your home from care costs.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4935458

Catswhiska

You need to make sure you have your house as Tennants in Common too

Keep_pedalling

I should add that having half you home owned by your children is not without risk, for instance what happens if one predeceases you, or goes bankrupt or gets involved in an expensive divorce?

Personally if I every need care I want choice so am not going to do anything to protect assets against self funding.

SevenOfNine

The 'solicitor' may have been referring to a Discretionary Trust, not required by you for IHT purposes (& for quite a few others for several years since IHT transfer changes).

It still serves a purpose in relation to the 2 areas you mention, care home fees &/or remarriage of the surviving spouse. However, with the introduction of the Residential Nil Rate Band Allowance, those still living who have one which specifically puts a % of the family home, (which would have been divided & owned as Tenants in Common), into the Discretionary Trust would be wise to rethink their situation.

Regarding payment for care home fee 'choice' with such a trust, the surviving spouse would ordinarily be one of the trustees, & depending on the instructions relating to the management of the trust, he/she can still utilise the trust assets to pay for care home fees if they so choose.

Having said that, there are too many variables &/or complexities which may/may not impact your choice, & quite frankly you would be better advised to seek the help of a qualified solicitor. Otherwise you may get opinions from 'well read laymen'.

It sounds like that may be what's happened, it's a distinct probability that you were not visited by a solicitor, very odd to have ongoing costs as you have been quoted. Are you sure it wasn't merely a Will writing company representative?

We are in the process of dismantling our Discretionary Trust & restructuring our Wills, though may retain the Tenants in Common ownership of our home. The only 'advice' I'm willing to take on this will, once again, be from a STEP membership solicitor, not a forum where qualifications are unknown.

Thankfully post #2 correctly identified in post #5 the whacking great pitfalls contained in the advice to leave 1/2 your home to the children.

Post #4 does not take into account the new RNRB allowance which may be of no consequence to you currently, but no-one knows what your financial circumstances may be aside from the current value of the house you are living in at the moment. Eg a hefty inheritance from deceased parents can change things considerably......who knows. If improved financial circumstances seem possible then you will want to give some thought to changes to probate charges as well.

£300 will probably get you simple mirror Wills leaving everything to each other. STEP membership solicitors will usually charge in the region of £250-£300 per hour.

securityguy

I find it amusing the number of people who bored me rigid with their trusts, like they were the heroes of Victorian melodramas, and now ten years later are dismantling them as ineffective and a waste of time and money. It's odd, because the trusts were apparently absolutely essential and the only responsible thing to do, and now they aren't. It's one of those middle-class things, like doing your own conveyancing or buying a wood-burning stove, which has a brief period of fashionability and then disappears without trace. It would be cheaper and easier to just get skateboard and a hula hoop.

SevenOfNine

securityguy wrote: »

I find it amusing the number of people who bored me rigid with their trusts, like they were the heroes of Victorian melodramas, and now ten years later are dismantling them as ineffective and a waste of time and money. It's odd, because the trusts were apparently absolutely essential and the only responsible thing to do, and now they aren't. It's one of those middle-class things, like doing your own conveyancing or buying a wood-burning stove, which has a brief period of fashionability and then disappears without trace. It would be cheaper and easier to just get skateboard and a hula hoop.

:rotfl::rotfl: :rotfl::rotfl:

So one can assume that over the past 10 years you have been, & continue to be, oblivious to any changes relating to inheritance that sensible people might feel justifies a re-evaluation of arrangements contained in their Wills. It's about keeping pace with change, not "fashionability"

Presumably you've chosen the cheaper & easier option of the 'one size fits all'.............mirror Wills leaving everything to each other & had them for 40 years! To be fair, perhaps there's been no significant shift in your financial circumstances, no death of an heir, nor birth of possible new ones - no changes whatsoever in your life or lifestyle, so the cheap & easy option suited you then & still does.

Though of course opinions & advice on forums is cheap & easy, unfortunately sometimes not so far removed from DiY as far as accuracy goes, but if it's middle class to prefer professional advice from a qualified solicitor, preferably with STEP membership, & to review our Wills every few years making changes as & when to keep pace with our changing circumstances, & keep pace with what successive governments lob at us on the inheritance front, I'm happy to be considered middle class.

Own conveyancing, no, I'd rather pay a professional. :beer:

Keep_pedalling

SevenOfNine wrote: »

:rotfl::rotfl: :rotfl::rotfl:

So one can assume that over the past 10 years you have been, & continue to be, oblivious to any changes relating to inheritance that sensible people might feel justifies a re-evaluation of arrangements contained in their Wills. It's about keeping pace with change, not "fashionability"

Presumably you've chosen the cheaper & easier option of the 'one size fits all'.............mirror Wills leaving everything to each other & had them for 40 years! To be fair, perhaps there's been no significant shift in your financial circumstances, no death of an heir, nor birth of possible new ones - no changes whatsoever in your life or lifestyle, so the cheap & easy option suited you then & still does.

Though of course opinions & advice on forums is cheap & easy, unfortunately sometimes not so far removed from DiY as far as accuracy goes, but if it's middle class to prefer professional advice from a qualified solicitor, preferably with STEP membership, & to review our Wills every few years making changes as & when to keep pace with our changing circumstances, & keep pace with what successive governments lob at us on the inheritance front, I'm happy to be considered middle class.

Own conveyancing, no, I'd rather pay a professional. :beer:

Fair enough point, but I think many trusts have been put in place because people were persuaded to by slick salesmen rather than professionals. There are also still many trusts in place that were made obsolescent by the transferable nil rate band which has now been in place for nearly 10 years, and you would have hoped that anyone using a professional service would have reviewed that by now, and perhaps that professional should have been in contact to at least explain the changes and consequences.

We have fairly simple mirror wills put in place 5 years ago by a professional. I have recently read through them as we are expecting out first grandchild this year, but that eventuality was built into out wills so nothing needs changing currently.

We know that far too many people don't have wills at all, but I imagine that there are also many who have not reviewed their wills for 10 years or more and some of those could be in a worse situation then dying intestate.

Keep_pedalling

DIY wills do have their place. I drafted one for my late step father, and have done the same for my mother. Neither owned property and have very modest savings.

SevenOfNine

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

There are also still many trusts in place that were made obsolescent by the transferable nil rate band which has now been in place for nearly 10 years.

Yes, I agree, but "obsolete" depends upon whether they were put in place purely for IHT minimisation purposes (a common misconception), or whether it was combined with thoughts about the remarriage of the surviving spouse and/or care home fees.

Unfortunately, there may be horror stories told about 'trusts' & all their pitfalls, but often the type of 'trust' isn't even identified, merely referred to as 'a trust'...........which sort??? If the advice given is of the 'cheap & cheerful' sort from less than qualified companies it's any wonder it doesn't serve the correct purpose & leaves mess in it's wake. But that is the fault of the person who chose not to utilise a qualified tax & estate planning solicitor. Even within solicitors it isn't 'one size fits all'.