Advice for whether legal services are required for administration of death

CliffordSquirrel

My brother in law died recently, single, lived in owned flat, one surviving relative (my husband). No known will left. We were thinking of using the Coop Legal Services for Probate etc. Is this a necessary service and has anyone had experience with this service?

Flugelhorn

no you don't need to use a probate service, plenty of people here (including me) have managed to get probate and administer uncomplicated estates on their own (with advice from other people / online resources) 
Companies willcharge £££ you still do the running around and they take ages. 

Keep_pedalling

As there was no will your husband will need to apply for letters of administration rather than probate. Sounds like a fairly simple estate which your husband should be able to deal with without the need to engage expensive professionals. There are plenty of people on this board who have plenty of experience and can answer almost any questions he may have. 

sheramber

there is information here

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/family/death-and-wills/dealing-with-the-financial-affairs-of-someone-who-has-died/#:~:text=This is called probate.,can deal with an estate.

getmore4less

Most estates are quite simple to administer but they take time and effort.

if you engage legal they still want you to do a lot of the leg work dealing with collecting the information and sorting property etc.

Might as well do the rest which is basically form filling and writing letters..

There is no rush and once a bit of reading up has been done it starts to make a lot more sense.

The main first step as part of administration is creating the inventory of stuff.

This can range from simple because the affairs were in order or trawling through rooms full of paperwork trying to track down accounts and debts

How much knowledge is there of the brothers finances?

assume no kids or spouse or civil partner  any partner significant other about? 

Early on it is a good idea to establish that the estate is solvent , if not that changes the path taken.
there is a term intermeddling that becomes relevant.


without intermeddling the flat can be secured and any valuables moved for save keeping, the funerals arrangements  can be made. 

That's probably enough to be going on with.

ikcdab

CliffordSquirrel said:

My brother in law died recently, single, lived in owned flat, one surviving relative (my husband). No known will left. We were thinking of using the Coop Legal Services for Probate etc. Is this a necessary service and has anyone had experience with this service?

This is pretty straightforward to do yourself.  I did it for both of my in-laws.  You just need to get your head around a few forms, but it isn't difficult.  Please don't pay these legal services £££ for such simple work.