Your comments please on whether the fees charged by a solicitor to administer an estate are excessive.
An executor has asked me to comment on the fees charged by a solicitor to handle the estate of a deceased but this is not my area.
In round numbers the fee charged was 1.5% of the gross estate (£5,250) PLUS professional time (£3,000) rounded down to £7,500 PLUS costs (£50) PLUS VAT.
To me this seems to be double counting, either charge a percentage of the gross estate or charge by the hour, but charging both?
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On the passing of my dads friend we were quoted £6000 plus costs plus 5% of the estate.
We did it ourselves in the end.
I don't know what the going rate is though.
I must say it is a lot of work, but nothing is too complicated.
Reasonable
These are reasonable for a taxable estate - 3% is a fair price and this is less than that - banks etc charge 4% plus
why is it reasonable to charge on the estate value
presumably you will say risk , surprised they havent charged a success fee as well. in fairness and very few lawyers deserve such we dont know how much work was involved. i recently saw a fee note from a lawyer that added a percentage of their fee for PPI as a separate item on the fee note, all bills should state the charge out rate by law IMO
Solicitors generally charge a percentage of the fee for "the responsibility" particularly if they are named as executor.
When the solicitor accepts the instruction, they are required, by the law society, to give you a charge out rate in their client care letter.
If you are not happy you can request a renumeration certificate which should show a detailed breakdown of the time spent. Usually it is in 1/10th of an hour. They are not allowed to charge for the breakdown.