Co-Op Fixed price vs. Solictor & other questions

photo_guy

My father recently died & we are trying to decide how to handle his Probate & sorting his financial affairs.

 He had 12 bank/savings/investment accounts plus Premium Bonds (so over the threashold for Probate).  He also had 3x pensions.
The deeds of the house also need to be transferred into my mum's name as they are currently in his sole name.

My mum is the sole beneficiary with her & myself (son) as executors.

My mum isn't really in a position to take an active involvement in sorting his affairs due to her age so I'm acting as the primary executor while keeping her in the loop.

I work full time & don't really have time to do everything myself (neither would I want to) so I would prefer to get a solicitor to handle the legal stuff (Income tax declaration, applying for probate, final accounts of the estate, transferring the deeds of the house into my mum's name, etc) or possibly just get them to do everything which would give me a bit more space for myself (which seems tempting from a mental health perspective).

 Quotes we've had so far are:

• Around £10,500 from Co-op's fixed price service - no option to do any of the work myself.
• Estimate £14,500 from the local family solicitor (likely maximum cost, (18-20 hours) so could be lower if I did some of the work myself) - this price includes a percentage of the estate (see question below).

Question 1:
Has anyone had any recent experience with Co-Op Legal services fixed price service for sorting Probate?  Their recent reviews seem mostly OK but I know some people on here have had bad experiences (they seem to have closed an old Trustpilot review page - Their remaining one has a fairly decent score & goes back to 2018)

Question 2:
Do the above prices sound about right?  Does anyone have any recommendations as to which option to go for or alternatives (like getting a 3rd quote (do some solicitors only charge per hour & not take a percentage of the estate value?) or are other fixed price services available)?

Question 3:
The family solicitor said we don't need to place an advert in the London Gazette & local paper to announce the death as my mum is the sole beneficiary so there wouldn't be any issue with paying that claim in the future but as I understand it, placing the advert gives potential creditors 2 months & one day to claim, after which they can't make a claim - is that right?  (in which case, I assume it would be wise to place the ads & ignore the solicitor’s advice).

Question 4:
Why do solicitors tend to charge both an hourly estimate plus a percentage of the value of the estate?
If they are already charging for the time they expect to process probate, sort financial affairs, etc then how can they justify charging a percentage of the estate on top of that?  Am I missing something?

Robin9

@photo_guy   In practise you will be doing a fair amount of work yourself -  you will be feeding the Coop / local solicitor all the bank investment details just for them to write a letter that you could do yourself.

Sounds like a straightforward DIY job  - and save yourself a min of £10k.   And also no rush


Lots of experts on the forum you can ask questions of.

Keep_pedalling

It really is not difficult to do this yourselves. This is an excepted estate so you will only need probate, no IHT return required. You will probable able to get much of his savings transferred to your mum before you get probate as most banks have quite high limits to how much they will pay without probate.

You will have to gather most of the info yourself anyway, and the on line probate form is quite straight forward. If you get stuck you will find lots of help and support here.

Brie

The only priority thing I'm seeing is the 3 pensions.  Tell them sooner rather than later that dad has died.  Ask if mom gets anything from the pensions.  They will likely want a certified copy or original of the death certificate.  The reason I pick on this is having worked in pension admin dealing with late notifications was always fraught with issues, mostly to do with paying back money that shouldn't have been paid out.  And some schemes can be quite cranky about it if not paid back promptly.  So best to stop any problems before they are actually problems in my opinion.  

Normally a phone call will work but then they will likely want the certificate, and if you send the original ask them to send it back regisitered - we used to turn them around in one day to get them out of the building asap.

Sorry for your loss - there is a lot to be done unfortunately.

Hoenir

photo_guy said:

Question 4:
Why do solicitors tend to charge both an hourly estimate plus a percentage of the value of the estate?

Professional indemnity insurance. Premium they pay is in part based on the values transacted. The value of estates differs widely. 

badmemory

Cheaper easier & a lot quicker to DIY.  Did my mothers & the thing that took longest was a pre-death HMRC refund.  Not their fault but the care home sat on the cheque (for several weeks minimum 6) & they won't re-issue for weeks after being notified.

user1977

photo_guy said:

Question 3:

The family solicitor said we don't need to place an advert in the London Gazette & local paper to announce the death as my mum is the sole beneficiary so there wouldn't be any issue with paying that claim in the future but as I understand it, placing the advert gives potential creditors 2 months & one day to claim, after which they can't make a claim - is that right?  (in which case, I assume it would be wise to place the ads & ignore the solicitor’s advice).

No. All it does is help executors avoid accusations that they didn't make some effort to find any creditors (and therefore become personally liable). It doesn't magically make any debts go away.

Even where the executor is a third party, in the vast majority of cases it's a waste of time and money, because people don't usually die leaving surprise debts. Maybe different if e.g. somebody who was self-employed and had chaotic finances suddenly dies.

pjs493

user1977 said:

photo_guy said:

Question 3:

The family solicitor said we don't need to place an advert in the London Gazette & local paper to announce the death as my mum is the sole beneficiary so there wouldn't be any issue with paying that claim in the future but as I understand it, placing the advert gives potential creditors 2 months & one day to claim, after which they can't make a claim - is that right?  (in which case, I assume it would be wise to place the ads & ignore the solicitor’s advice).

No. All it does is help executors avoid accusations that they didn't make some effort to find any creditors (and therefore become personally liable). It doesn't magically make any debts go away.

Even where the executor is a third party, in the vast majority of cases it's a waste of time and money, because people don't usually die leaving surprise debts. Maybe different if e.g. somebody who was self-employed and had chaotic finances suddenly dies.

I second this from personal experience. From what you’ve said it seems like you were close to your father and have some knowledge of the financial situation of your parents so it’s not likely that your father had lots of debts or hidden debts you may not be aware of. 

In my case of dealing with my husband’s estate, I knew exactly which credit cards he had and, along with a small mortgage, this was the extent of the debt. There were only multiple credit cards to take advantage of rewards and 0% deals. One company I contacted informed me there was actually a £0 balance and happily closed the account without requiring me to send the death certificate. Another had a small balance that I just paid off over the phone rather than wait for probate.  

Even tracking down somewhat dormant bank and building society accounts was easy as we’re a pretty well organised couple when it comes to paperwork. My biggest difficulty was getting access to bank statements to double check I’d accounted for any direct debits and standing orders that didn’t come from our joint account. With online banking, I couldn’t access his online banking accounts in a way that I could have checked recent paper statements in years gone by. 

Fortunately I was able to change a couple of direct debits to our joint account (internet that was wrapped in with his mobile provider) and Netflix, that for some reason had always been paid from his sole account, without any issues. 

The most difficult thing for me has been transferring his ISA and getting my bank to add the APS allowance to my ISA. They keep sending me the wrong paperwork and take ages to process stuff. I’ve also not yet been able to find a solution for taking his private pension as a beneficiary (he died young) in a ring-fenced pension for myself to access tax free when I reach retirement age. 

His financial advisor wants me to pay extortionate fees to manage the portfolio until I reach retirement age which seems like an expensive solution given the amount of money involved. The fees made sense when my husband had an active portfolio to manage but it seems excessive when the money with basically just sit on a platform tracking the markets for the next 25 years. If it wasn’t for the tax benefit I’d have just withdrawn the money and put it all in my own private pension. 

Once probate is granted it should be simple to change the house into your mother’s name with the Land Registry. They have an online portal and the fee schedule is published on their website.