Probate lowest price

andypenniall

Hi, my wife has had breast cancer and is diagnosed with dementia. A while ago I heard you can get probate for £95 on the Martin Lewis show. Does anyone know how I can get hold of it. Is this the lowest price possible as I can't do it myself as I'd find it to hard. I don't have a clue how to do it.
Thanks.
Andrew Penniall 

p00hsticks

sorry to hear of your situation. 

Can I firstly suggest that if you are using your real name as your user name, you get it changed to something less easily identifiable to avoid making yourself a potential target for scammers. You can contact the MSE Forum team and request that they change it.  
Can I change my username? – MoneySavingExpert.com FAQs

I'm not aware of the item on the Martin Lewis show but it doesn;t sound right to me. The standard probate fee if the estate is worth more than £5000 is £273, although you can apply for a reduction if you are on certain benefits. But this is purely the cost of the applicaiton, not the charge a solicitor or similar would make to help you with the application. 
Applying for probate: Fees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

However, depending on what your wife's estate consists of and who she has left it to, probate may not be needed at all, so you may be worrying unnecessarily.  

BooJewels

Probate is something that you do after death - if organisations require it to release funds, to sell a house or to cash in shares etc when you're executing a will.  Very often, spouses don't actually need it, if money was in joint names etc.   The Grant of Probate itself is an official document/certificate to say that a court official has looked at her original will and 'proved it' - in that all is in order and the executors ID checks out etc.  It authorises you to undertake high value processes like selling a property.  That process itself costs £273 for the court fee - so I wonder if you mean something else?

A Lasting Power of Attorney costs about £82 for each one (one for property and finance, one for health and welfare) and can be done by yourself.   But it might be too late to set one up, if your wife has dementia - it depends if she's well enough on occasion to understand what she's signing etc.  Plus, they take quite a while to come through once you've applied - something like 20 weeks or so.

Perhaps if you explain what you're hoping to achieve - or what you think it is that you need - and we can help you better.

SVaz

First of all,  do you have wills?
No will = No probate. You have to apply for letters of administration instead to deal with the Estate.
Bank accounts rarely need probate for a spouse, a death cert usually suffices.   

https://www.settld.care/what-are-the-current-limits-for-grant-of-probate-for-financial-services-firms/

Are there any separate assets that will need probate / LOA ? Things like ISAs and private pensions.

Do you own your home? If so is it jointly? 

Keep_pedalling

You may not even need probate / letters of administration. You won’t need it for your home if you own it jointly, you won’t need it for any jointly owned bank / savings accounts, you may not even need it for any sole accounts she has as banks have quite high limits on what they will pay out without it.

For the time being do not worry about it and concentrate on the important stuff.

When  the time comes you will find lots of support and guidance from the contributors on this board.

Savvy_Sue

Many of us have found that doing probate is quite possible, but it partly depends on whether your wife is going to have a complicated estate - multiple properties, a large portfolio of stocks and shares, a valuable art collection. If it's all simple, a) you may not need to do anything and b) we can help you, or you can pay for proper advice on any aspect you find difficult. 

JakeHyde

BooJewels said:

Probate is something that you do after death - if organisations require it to release funds, to sell a house or to cash in shares etc when you're executing a will.  Very often, spouses don't actually need it, if money was in joint names etc.   The Grant of Probate itself is an official document/certificate to say that a court official has looked at her original will and 'proved it' - in that all is in order and the executors ID checks out etc.  It authorises you to undertake high value processes like selling a property.  That process itself costs £273 for the court fee - so I wonder if you mean something else?

A Lasting Power of Attorney costs about £82 for each one (one for property and finance, one for health and welfare) and can be done by yourself.   But it might be too late to set one up, if your wife has dementia - it depends if she's well enough on occasion to understand what she's signing etc.  Plus, they take quite a while to come through once you've applied - something like 20 weeks or so.

Perhaps if you explain what you're hoping to achieve - or what you think it is that you need - and we can help you better.

Great advice, I'm going through this exact thing too.
Mum changed a property from 'joint tenancy' to 'tenants in common' in order for her to give me her half, and now we're stuck needing probate.  I've wanted to try and do it myself to save the solicitors fees, but because I haven't been emotionally strong enough to do it, it's costing me more time, when a solicitor could have blasted through it... at an additional  fee of course. 

JakeHyde

Savvy_Sue said:

Many of us have found that doing probate is quite possible, but it partly depends on whether your wife is going to have a complicated estate - multiple properties, a large portfolio of stocks and shares, a valuable art collection. If it's all simple, a) you may not need to do anything and b) we can help you, or you can pay for proper advice on any aspect you find difficult. 

Thank you Sue, I know this isn't my thread, but as someone who is going through a very similar thing, I found it very comforting to know I'm not on my own, with such a great group of people on here. I've put off probate for a whole year, as I've been paralysed with grief, and looking after my poor dad. But I'm slowly getting around to everything now.

JakeHyde

p00hsticks said:

sorry to hear of your situation. 

Can I firstly suggest that if you are using your real name as your user name, you get it changed to something less easily identifiable to avoid making yourself a potential target for scammers. You can contact the MSE Forum team and request that they change it.  
Can I change my username? – MoneySavingExpert.com FAQs

I'm not aware of the item on the Martin Lewis show but it doesn;t sound right to me. The standard probate fee if the estate is worth more than £5000 is £273, although you can apply for a reduction if you are on certain benefits. But this is purely the cost of the applicaiton, not the charge a solicitor or similar would make to help you with the application. 
Applying for probate: Fees - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

However, depending on what your wife's estate consists of and who she has left it to, probate may not be needed at all, so you may be worrying unnecessarily.  

Great advice also! 

Newly_retired

Applying for Probate is not difficult, but if you use a solicitor  you probably still have to do a lot of legwork gathering the information they need.

BooJewels

Newly_retired said:

Applying for Probate is not difficult, but if you use a solicitor  you probably still have to do a lot of legwork gathering the information they need.

Indeed and they then become very expensive form-fillers.   I'd be prepared to bet that just about every piece of information on the Probate application form you'd have to supply them with anyway, so cut our the expensive - and no doubt much slower - bit.  I'm not sure that solicitors are the best qualified professionals to assist in this process anyway - if you need help or advice with the form, a tax accountant is probably more suitable.