Probate Pricing Guide

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Probate Pricing Guide

Our Services

At mlplaw, our solicitors have a range of specialist experience in dealing with the administration of estates. Most of the solicitors in the department either have, or are working towards, the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) Diploma in Trusts and Estates and are accredited with The Association of Lifetime Lawyers. We are experienced in dealing with complex, high-value estates and advising on estates which include business assets, overseas assets and where the domicile of the deceased needs to be ascertained.

We have local connections with estate agents, surveyors and other third parties who may need to be instructed to undertake work during the course of the administration of an estate.

We provide a personal approach when dealing with our clients. The person that you will see in your initial meeting will be the person with overall responsibility for your matter, and will be a point of contact for you on a day-to-day basis. However, if it would be most cost-efficient and appropriate to delegate work to colleagues with lower hourly rate, we will do so to keep the costs to you down.

At mlplaw, we are up-front and honest with our charges. Our aim is to ensure that our clients are completely confident in our service and that there will be no surprises, and no hidden costs.

If you instruct us to administer an estate on your behalf, we will prepare a bespoke proposal, offering tailored options to you as to how we price our work. This gives you control over our

The work involved in the administration of an estate can vary greatly depending on many factors, including (but not limited to) the following:

The value of the estate
Any difficulties in establishing whether there is a Will, which is the most recent Will, or any vagueness in the specific terms of the Will
Any difficulties in establishing the extent of the assets and liabilities in the estate
The number of assets held by different organisations, i.e. more accounts and shareholdings with more companies will take longer to deal with
The kind of assets and liabilities in the estate, i.e. shareholdings will often take more work to deal with than bank accounts
Whether Inheritance Tax is payable on the estate
Whether MLP Law Ltd are appointed as executors of the estate
Disputes between beneficiaries or claims against an estate by disappointed beneficiaries
Whether the deceased owned a business or agricultural property
Whether the deceased owned any private company shares
Whether the estate involves any foreign assets
Whether there are any issues over the domicile of the deceased
Whether a Deed of Variation or renunciation of executors is required and
Whether the Will contains any trusts, or the deceased was a beneficiary of any trusts.

As a result, our costs will depend on the specific circumstances of the estate and the work we are instructed to do. This, by its very nature, has to be dealt with on a case by case basis.

If you require help with obtaining a Grant of Probate only, and do not require assistance with the administration of the whole estate, we will be able to give you a fixed fee quote for this work (unless the estate is unusually complex or high-value), with our fixed fees for these types of matters start from £1500 (ex VAT) and expenses.

Please read more about our Probate services here and here.

Pricing

If you require assistance with the administration of the entire estate, we will produce a pricing proposal after our initial meeting. This proposal will normally give you 2-3 options for our costs. The options given will often comprise one or more of the following, although other options may be offered if appropriate:

Hourly rate charges for the work undertaken, plus an additional value element of a small percentage of the estate (usually between 0.5% and 1.5% of the gross estate), if appropriate
A fixed fee
A fixed percentage of the gross estate.

From experience, we find that the average costs for estates administered on an hourly rate basis tend to be as

Value of the estate	Average fees exc VAT	VAT	Gross inc VAT
Up to £325,000	Starting from £3,750	Starting from £750	Starting from £4,500
Up to £650,000	Starting from £5,650	Starting from £1,130	Starting from £6,780
Up to £1.5 million	Starting from £7,950	Starting from £1,590	Starting from £9,540
£1.5 million +	by agreement

Our proposal will always take into account the specific circumstances of the matter so if, for example, an estate were to only consist of a house worth £1.5 million, and no other assets whatsoever, our hourly rate charges may be less than outlined in the table above, due to the amount of work that would be involved in administering the estate.

The figures outlined are not fixed and are for guidance only and we would always recommend a free, no-obligation consultation with one of the team, for an accurate proposal.

The proposal will also outline any third-party expenses which may be payable in addition to our costs, and any work that is excluded (i.e. the sale of a property in the estate would be dealt with by our Residential Property Department, for which a separate quote would be provided).

If you have any questions about our costs, would like further information, or would like to arrange a free, no-obligation 15-minute consultation, please feel free to contact a member of the team.

Understanding Trust Disputes in the UK: A Comprehensive Guide

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