advertisement


HELP! Trying to prevent a travesty over my friend dying allegedly intestate

Will writing is horses for courses.
Although my family are spread to all four corners and have never been remotely close across any of the three generations that I have known, we ultimately trust one another, and the estates were very simple.

Any complication in any of the parts to getting things sorted, you will need help to avoid pratfalls.
 
doctorf said:
My understanding is that solicitors fees can be horrendous if they are executors of a will.
Click to expand...
Define horrendous.
You can negotiate to base the fees on a percentage of the estate or on the hours worked. The former is the traditional way, the latter the better.
And remember, the labourer is worthy of his hire.
 
MikeMA said:
I would suggest that unless you have a very simple, low value estate, you are much better off getting advice from a good independent solicitor, and possibly an accountant too!
Click to expand...
So a solicitor doing a bit of pro bono work for a charity is inferior for a will are they?


I would agree though for Tony his wishes for the future of PFM and its financing after he is gone would probably be beyond the remit of simple will services.
 
Thorn said:
Define horrendous.
You can negotiate to base the fees on a percentage of the estate or on the hours worked. The former is the traditional way, the latter the better.
And remember, the labourer is worthy of his hire.
Click to expand...
Not at the £30 an email that one solicitor charged a friend during her divorce…
 
Vinny said:
Will writing is horses for courses.
Although my family are spread to all four corners and have never been remotely close across any of the three generations that I have known, we ultimately trust one another, and the estates were very simple.
Click to expand...

Let’s hope there’s never a disagreement then. I’ve seen families splinter over trivial sums of money. Death and the green eyed monster brings out the worst in many people unfortunately.

Wills are one of those areas where you don’t know what you don’t know (unless you happen to be a lawyer specialist in that area). Seek proper advice to cover every scenario. It’s equally important to have LPA’s in place as well.
 
dweezil said:
It would be strange if there weren't any deaths apparently related to vaccinations now so many have been treated.

The hard part is teasing out a causal relationship when past stats haven't necessarily been collated with that in mind.
Click to expand...

Neither the EMA nor the NHS articles I linked to acknowledge any causal relationship - and they would indeed be foolish to do so given the tiny percentages involved and the strong possibility of coincidence.
They do however point to some correlative links in the data they have - particularly concerning age and gender - which they can do given that these are conjectured on the relevant sample (i.e those who have suffered similar symptoms and/or death)

What is crucial though is the advice both give in relation to possible symptoms and courses of action, both by the patients themselves and medical practitioners who may be involved.

A better course I would think than simply sticking one's head in the sand or muttering about cucumbers.
 
Arkless Electronics said:
Are there any solicitors on pfm who could help please?
Click to expand...

I am not a solicitor but have been executor/administrator for 2 family members with wills and one without. The below might help.

If you cannot locate a will then the closest family member/s will inherit. This is clear and straightforward.

Leaving a will with solicitors can be problematic. The solicitor used by my father for many decades retired and his business was acquired by a large firm of ambulance chasers. They denied having the will and it took it several requests of decreasing politeness and increasing firmness until they were prepared to go and look and get it out of storage. Had I not been certain where it was my father would have died intestate. After this experience we have kept copies of wills with family not solicitors.

Registers are more useful for newer wills rather than older ones. They are incomplete but might be worth a punt if you have no idea of the location of a possible will.

Without a will it tends to take longer to become an administrator particularly if a house is involved. The application to become administrator can only be submitted after the value of the estate has been assessed and the tax sorted out. This normally involves the person/s intending to become administrator finding all the estate's assets. So going through the paperwork after a few days is quite normal but all the assets will remain the estate's until somebody becomes administrator with the authority/responsibility to transfer them. It will take months not days to become administrator particularly during covid because the courts will prioritise more urgent matters.
 
miktec said:
What is crucial though is the advice both give in relation to possible symptoms and courses of action, both by the patients themselves and medical practitioners who may be involved.

A better course I would think than simply sticking one's head in the sand or muttering about cucumbers.
Click to expand...

You seem not to have a grasp of what platitude means.
As for cucumbers - a simple illustration, obviously too complicated for you to grasp. Quite how that is sticking my head in sand, I completely fail to understand given that, as has been said by others since, my statement was a statement of very simple and near universally accepted (except by you at least), fact.

Nor do you have a grasp of the statistics or logic involved in anything that you have posted.
 
Bob McC said:
Not at the £30 an email that one solicitor charged a friend during her divorce…
Click to expand...
An hourly rate of £300 divided into 6 minute units for phone calls and face-to-face interviews and one unit per letter of email is not unreasonable for a partner, although it might be for an assistant solicitor, and definitely for a clerk.

Before you squawk about £300 an hour don't forget that it not only goes toward paying the person who does the work but also the support staff, the rent, the indemnity insurance and other insurances, the IT that solicitors are forced to have by the Law Society and courts, the stationery, the phone bills, the cup of tea your friend had, the interest on the loan to run the practice, the practising certificate fee and a host of other things I've probably forgotten. Then there's subsidising the unprofitable areas of law like crime, though many firms are going straight these days.And finally there's hopefully some profit left over for the partners.

That said, the firm charging £300 an hour is probably based in the south-east or is an upmarket firm in a large city. Solicitors in high street firms charge less.
 
Thorn said:
Define horrendous.
You can negotiate to base the fees on a percentage of the estate or on the hours worked. The former is the traditional way, the latter the better.
And remember, the labourer is worthy of his hire.
Click to expand...
Who in their right mind would pay a solicitor an hourly rate as an executor?

Agree a fixed fee and the solicitor has an incentive to get the job done in a timely fashion.
 
MikeMA said:
I don't know, and for that reason I wouldn't take the chance.
Click to expand...
You'd be quite safe. It's a loss leader. The firm hopes to get the probate, or at the very least the goodwill which will get the client to come back with his conveyancing or other legal work.
 
Cav said:
Who in their right mind would pay a solicitor an hourly rate as an executor?

Agree a fixed fee and the solicitor has an incentive to get the job done in a timely fashion.
Click to expand...
Only a fool of a solicitor would agree to a fixed fee. Who knows what might crop up?
 
Cav said:
Who knows what might "crop up" on a per hour deal?

Are you, or were you, a solicitor?
Click to expand...
I was until I retired. I'm still on the Law Society register, but have no practising certificate and no interest in keeping up to date with what's happened in the last seven years.
 
Thorn said:
Only a fool of a solicitor would agree to a fixed fee. Who knows what might crop up?
Click to expand...
When I looked into this it seemed that for probate work, most solicitors operated on a mixture of fixed fees, percentage fees, and time charges, depending on the nature and complexity of the estate, with scope for a good deal of negotiation between the various elements. For simple probate with me as executor and me doing most of the work, I agreed a flat rate fee. In another instance, involving an estate which included overseas assets, and where I was the executor but the solicitor had lots to do, it was much more complicated - a bit of a nightmare in fact - and expensive!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top