Complex Estate / Need Some Advice / Tips

Keep_pedalling

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Given the work involved £20K is unreasonable unless the Op has not told us something.

At the moment it is a finger in the air job, and the solicitor has guesstimated it on a number of hours and no one really knows how much time will be involved. The only way they give a fixed cost would be based on a percentage of estate, which will be horribly expensive.

The solicitor will need to provide a breakdown of costs so it will be based on actual hours involved, so the only way to keep costs down to to take on as much of the work as possible. There would seem to be a business to be dealt with here as well which is likely to increase costs.

Linton

I side with the majority here. £20K is a small % of the total. Bearing in mind they will be taking on liability for errors it is a small price to pay.

Yorkshireman99

Linton wrote: »

I side with the majority here. £20K is a small % of the total. Bearing in mind they will be taking on liability for errors it is a small price to pay.

If the solicitor is, as it seems, going to charge on the basis of the time actually taken then the estate value is not relevant. Their PI cover will be based on the whole year not estate by estate.

MattWright

Thank you all again.

We are booking in to see the Solicitors - I want to ask them face to face for a breakdown of their expected work / responsibilities throughout the process, given we will be doing X, Y and Z.

I’ve now found out that their costs are officially £220 per hour and £260 per hour for the senior / executor.

Plus the VAT.

Ouch.

Yorkshireman99

MattWright wrote: »

Thank you all again.

We are booking in to see the Solicitors - I want to ask them face to face for a breakdown of their expected work / responsibilities throughout the process, given we will be doing X, Y and Z.

I’ve now found out that their costs are officially £220 per hour and £260 per hour for the senior / executor.

Plus the VAT.

Ouch.

That is not out of all proportion but you are correct to ask. Whilst youi will be doing much of the donkey work they will be able to just take your word for the figures you give them. They will need proof of the figures.

getmore4less

I suspect they have gone high to protect themselves if you bottle it at some point.


this could be very simple or quite complex depending on the structure of the estate.
If there are assets wrapped up in business then it is none obvious how to deal with each type of legal business structure on death, it is not that hard to research the basics quite quickly.

If you can deal with the drudgery of the basics of the inventory then it should be possible to keep the costs under control by having the solicitors dealing with specific tasks, they will need to be up to speed on the inventory and the tax position both capital and income if they are going to be dealing with HMRC.

Ideally you want to get to the stage where you can present the solicitors with the full set of IHT400 forms filled in and a proposal for paying the IHT resolving the debts and distributing the assets.

also have prepared the final year to DOD tax returns and have a clear idea of any tax implications during administration

Tom99

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

Because the deceased appointed a professional to do so knowing it would be charged for. If they were not allowed to charge then they would not take on the role, and with some estates a professional is essential.

One advantage of using a solicitor is that they have PI insurance, so if they muck it up, the beneficiaries can recover any losses, this is not always the case with an amateur executor.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I appreciate that's what everyone expects to happen but under what authority can the professional executor charge for their own time. I would think that either the will should allow it or there must be some other legislation which allows it?[/FONT]

Keep_pedalling

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I appreciate that's what everyone expects to happen but under what authority can the professional executor charge for their own time. I would think that either the will should allow it or there must be some other legislation which allows it?[/FONT]

The testator does it by appointing them as executors and signing the will. The testator would have been given the terms of service at the time. Executors are acting for the estate they are not employed by the beneficiaries.

Jenniefour

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I appreciate that's what everyone expects to happen but under what authority can the professional executor charge for their own time. I would think that either the will should allow it or there must be some other legislation which allows it?[/FONT]

Why would solicitors administer an estate and not charge for it? They are not charging for their own personal time, they are charging for their billable hours to do the job. Very different from lay executors. There is no legislation that prevents solicitors from charging for their work as executor or on anything else to do with probate.

Tom99

Jenniefour wrote: »

Why would solicitors administer an estate and not charge for it? They are not charging for their own personal time, they are charging for their billable hours to do the job. Very different from lay executors. There is no legislation that prevents solicitors from charging for their work as executor or on anything else to do with probate.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]I am not saying the professional executor should not charge, but just asking under what authority they are allowed to charge whilst another executor is not.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]It's often referred to, but under what legislation is a lay executor not allowed to charge for their time? [/FONT]