Grant of Probate/Letter of Administration

If you would like to carry out most of the work in the estate administration yourself and instruct us to simply obtain the Grant of Probate, our charges will usually be £800 plus VAT (£960) and £273 Probate Registry fees plus £1.50 for each sealed copy of the Grant you require.

• Our Grant of Probate/Letter of Administration service

  Our Grant of Probate/Letter of Administration service, includes:

  • Meeting with you to take your instructions.
  • Preparing the Probate application paperwork and meeting with you again for you to complete this.
  • Submitting the completed paperwork to the Probate Registry.
  • Sending out to you the issued Grant of Probate and sealed copies.

• What our standard fees cover

  We will charge our usual fee on the basis that:

  • We already hold the last Will of the deceased or you are able to provide the original to us and there is no issue with the validity of this.
  • You provide us with an original death certificate for the deceased and satisfactory identification evidence for yourself.
  • You are the only executor(s) currently entitled to take out the Grant and there are no major discrepancies between your name(s) as it appears on the Will and your identification evidence.
  • You provide us with a schedule of the estate assets, how they are owned and their value either at our initial meeting or in a single document shortly after the meeting.
  • You provide us with a schedule of all declarable gifts made by the deceased during the last seven years of their life, including the amount, date and recipient of each gift either at our initial meeting or in a single document shortly after the meeting.
  • The gross value of the estate assets, including the gross value of the declarable lifetime gifts does not exceed £325,000. The lifetime gifts do not exceed £150,000 in value and there are no Trust assets to declare.
  • The deceased was domiciled in England and Wales and did not own any foreign assets, nor have a foreign Will.
  • All executors meet with us together to complete the Probate application paperwork.
  • There is no dispute regarding the estate that we are to be involved in.
  • You deal with all other aspects of the estate administration yourself.

  Once you have provided us with the information we need, we would usually expect to have prepared the Probate application within two weeks. Once we have met with you to complete this, assuming all proceeds smoothly, we would expect to be able to send out to you the issued Grant of Probate and sealed copies within four weeks. We can ask the Probate Registry to speed up the issue of the Grant where this is needed urgently.

  All work will be carried out either by or under the supervision of an experienced solicitor.

  Where the circumstances are as set out above except:

  • The deceased died without leaving a Will, then, assuming you are the only people entitled to take out the Grant of Letters of Administration under the Intestacy rules, our charges for carrying out the above work would usually be £800 plus VAT (£960) and £273 Probate Registry fees plus £1.50 for each sealed copy of the Grant you require.
  • No Inheritance Tax is payable upon the deceased’s estate but additional Inheritance Tax accounts are required by HMRC then our charges for carrying out the above work, including the completion of those additional accounts, would be in the region of £1,000 to £1,500 plus VAT (£1,200 to £1,800) and £273 Probate Registry fees plus £1.50 for each sealed copy of the Grant you require.
  • Inheritance Tax is payable upon the deceased’s estate then our charges for carrying out the above work, including the completion of the IHT400 account and arranging for payment of the tax from a single bank account held by the deceased, would usually be in the region of £2,000 to £2,500 plus VAT (£2,400 to £3,000) and £273 Probate Registry fees plus £1.50 for each sealed copy of the Grant you require.

  If you wish us to carry out any further work for you in addition to that set out above, please discuss this with us. In general terms, our charges for carrying out this additional work will be calculated upon the basis of the time we spend working on this, applying the hourly rate charged by the legal professional acting. In many cases, we will be able to provide you with an estimate of these further charges.

• Hourly fees for our Wills & Probate team

  • Partner / Consultant – £335 plus VAT
  • Legal Director – £300 plus VAT
  • Senior Associate – £260 plus VAT
  • Associate – £215 plus VAT
  • Trainee Solicitor / Senior Paralegal – £180 plus VAT
  • Paralegal – £135 plus VAT