Wills, Trusts and Probate

Our Private Client team are proud to offer a variety of services and are pleased to have helped hundreds of clients with matters such as:

• Applying for probate or dealing with the probate process
• Deed of variation
• Making or amending you will
• Making Powers of Attorney
• Trusts

Wills

If you don’t make a will the assets which you have built up in your lifetime will be distributed in accordance with the intestacy rules. If you have no close relatives, they may even go to the state. The intestacy rules do not recognise changing family lifestyles; co-habiting but unmarried partners have no automatic entitlement to inheritance from one another, even if they have children. This is a key reason why you should make a will. Contact us.

Probate

At Majorlaw we understand that losing a loved one is a stressful and emotional time that’s why we want to help our clients with the probate process as much as possible. When somebody dies their financial affairs need to be concluded, their wishes as expressed in their will have to be given effect and tax that is due on their estate must be paid.

We aim to keep you informed of your matter throughout, provide competitive pricing and ease the pressure off you at this stressful time.

Our Fees for Probate Matters

We would aim to give an indication of costs once we have full information from you. Our charges are based on our time input with reference to our hourly rates and the value of the estate.

For a straightforward estate say of £250,000 consisting of a flat or house and a bank account inherited by a surviving spouse under a will our fees for obtaining the grant of probate, collecting the estate (excluding conveyancing fees if the property is sold to a third party), preparing estate accounts and distributing the estate our fees might be in the region of £3,000 to £5,500 plus VAT.

In addition, we would anticipate the following costs:

Probate Registry fee for the Grant and five office copies £160.00

Commissioners fees £7.00

Land Registry fees £66.00

A non-exhaustive list of factors which might increase costings include the existence of trusts, lifetime gifts, inheritance tax/income tax/capital gains tax considerations, shareholdings or significant assets, overseas elements, family disputes, large numbers of beneficiaries, intestacies or missing wills.