Co Op Legal Services Probate or fixed fee services

BuzzyBee77

My father died in the first week of December and a week later, the day after completing 'Tell Me Once' online form and the Deceased Preference Service online form, I was contacted by Co Op Legal Service to make an appointment to speak to a probate advisor, who I have now spoken to. Now I am very worried as found out they have two Trust Pilot review pages, one under Co-operative Legal Services, rated excellent 4.8 with 3007 reviews and the other under Co-op Legal Services with a poor to average rating of 3.6 with 108. Google review rating is poor 1.8.   Has any one used them or can recommend a fixed fee probate service?. I would do it myself, but dealing with a lot of stress and family illness at the moment. Also the estate even though very straight forward is subject to IHT 

RAS

Are you sure the estate is valued over £1m, as that is the maximum for a second spouse dying, if there is or was property?

BuzzyBee77

RAS said:

Are you sure the estate is valued over £1m, as that is the maximum for a second spouse dying, if there is or was property?

Think you are replying to the wrong post

Savvy_Sue

BuzzyBee77 said:

RAS said:

Are you sure the estate is valued over £1m, as that is the maximum for a second spouse dying, if there is or was property?

Think you are replying to the wrong post

Possibly. The assumptions RAS is working on are that your mother died before your father, that she was married to him at the time of her death, and that her will left pretty much everything to your father. If that is the case, and your father's will leaves any property to his direct descendants, then there is almost certainly £1m available before you have to pay any IHT. 

Granted, those may be pretty big assumptions, but sometimes people assume they will have to pay IHT because they are only aware of the single person's limits, and they know the estate exceeds that.

Even if you ask a solicitor to do the job, you will still have to do a fair bit of information hunting for them: identifying bank accounts and other finances, requesting final valuations etc. so it may not be the stress free experience you are hoping for. You can get help on specific aspects of probate once you have done that, and retain the control yourself. We used an accountant to check a few details, for example. 

In the absence of a recommendation, you could also phone a couple of local solicitors and ask about their fees, how they perform this work, how long it usually takes them to do the work for an estate of roughly the size you're talking about. Can you speak to them easily, do you get answers you can understand? I'm assuming you haven't yet signed a contract with anyone. 

Keep_pedalling

The problem with using any professional probate service is los of control. You will almost certainly find that it takes far longer for the estate to be wound up and that rather than reducing stress it can add a lot more.

You say that his estate will be subject to IHT but have you taken into account ant transferable NRB that may apply and the residential NRB? I single person can leave up to £500k to direct descendants, and up to £1M if they were widowed.

Savvy_Sue

I will also add a recommendation to use a house clearance service after your first / second / third pass through the property to look for paperwork and items of sentimental value, and also to remove anything valuable if the place is empty. That reduced my stress levels enormously, and if you're in the Newbury area I can give a recommendation! Not cheap but worth every single penny ... 

BuzzyBee77

Savvy_Sue said:

BuzzyBee77 said:

RAS said:

Are you sure the estate is valued over £1m, as that is the maximum for a second spouse dying, if there is or was property?

Think you are replying to the wrong post

Possibly. The assumptions RAS is working on are that your mother died before your father, that she was married to him at the time of her death, and that her will left pretty much everything to your father. If that is the case, and your father's will leaves any property to his direct descendants, then there is almost certainly £1m available before you have to pay any IHT. 

Granted, those may be pretty big assumptions, but sometimes people assume they will have to pay IHT because they are only aware of the single person's limits, and they know the estate exceeds that.

Even if you ask a solicitor to do the job, you will still have to do a fair bit of information hunting for them: identifying bank accounts and other finances, requesting final valuations etc. so it may not be the stress free experience you are hoping for. You can get help on specific aspects of probate once you have done that, and retain the control yourself. We used an accountant to check a few details, for example. 

In the absence of a recommendation, you could also phone a couple of local solicitors and ask about their fees, how they perform this work, how long it usually takes them to do the work for an estate of roughly the size you're talking about. Can you speak to them easily, do you get answers you can understand? I'm assuming you haven't yet signed a contract with anyone. 

Not really understanding some of the replies to my post. My Mum and Dad never married and separated (Mum married someone else). Would be straightforward as I am my Dad's only child and executor and sole beneficiary. Would it be better to use a local probate solicitor?. Wondering how it can be legal for Co - Op Legal Services to cold call people who use the Deceased Preference Service. Less than 24 hours after filing in the online form I was contacted by their representative.

BuzzyBee77

Found a previous thread dealing with similar issue. 

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6103901/co-operative-legal-services-probate

Surely there should be a 14 day cooling off period to terminate the contract ?. I am usually not taken in by things like this and usually thoroughly research things, but they contacted me one week after my Dad died and the day after filling out the ‘Tell Us Once’ forms online. I also have stress from my mum being unwell and helping my sister care for her. Head is not as clear as usual. Things a bit more settled now as my Dad’s funeral has taken place last week. 

Would like to know how Co Op Legal services get contact details for the recently bereaved, seems like they swoop like vultures. 

RAS

Ok, if dad and mum never married, if dad owned property and it's left to his child (you), there is still a possible 500k IHT allowance. Depends on the value of the property.

If the Co-op legal bods have not yet started collecting money etc (intermeddling), you can still do the probate yourself, for their fee. What percentage do they want?

If you do it yourself, it's likely to be quicker, and you can always seek legal advice about any issue that bothers you. Although it would make sense to gather together most or all the queries and seek advice on everything at one session if possible.

If the undertakers send the funeral bill to the bank where he has enough money, the bank will pay it directly.

BuzzyBee77

Funds of over £450k from sale of family home in savings account. Home was sold last year to free up funds for care before diagnosis tragically changed and care costs became free. Mum remarried so not a beneficiary.  Contract was only digitally signed on Wednesday, so no documents sent to them or work started by them yet.

Keep_pedalling

BuzzyBee77 said:

Funds of over £450k from sale of family home in savings account. Home was sold last year to free up funds for care before diagnosis tragically changed and care costs became free. Mum remarried so not a beneficiary.  Contract was only digitally signed on Wednesday, so no documents sent to them or work started by them yet.

Even though the house was sold, you will still be able to claim his residential NRB so assuming his house sold for £175k or more, then his combined NRBs will give an exemption of £500k so it sounds like there will be no IHT to pay.

A full IHT return will still be required because the residual NRB is being claimed.