Key Stages
Once you have confirmed that you would like to instruct Wills & Probate Solutions Ltd to act on your behalf to obtain the necessary Grant and distribute the Estate (either in accordance with a Will or under the Rules of Intestacy), we will send you our client care letter, together with various forms for you to complete and return.
The client care letter confirms that Marrianne and Wills & Probate Solutions Ltd are authorised to undertake this Reserved Activity under the Legal Services Act 2007 and that both are regulated by CILEx (Chartered Institute of Legal Executives).
A lot of information is required in order to apply for the Grant and we cannot submit the application until all the information has been received.
Within one week of receiving the completed paperwork back from you, we will advise if any further information is required before providing a draft Estate Valuation outlining the assets and liabilities held by the deceased at the date of death. You will need to let us know if anything is missing!
We will also contact the asset and liability holders to advise them that we have been instructed to administer the Estate and ask their requirements. If the asset holders do not require a Grant to release the funds, we will request that this is paid into our client account.
Once we have funds on account, we can then settle liabilities and arrange for any legacies to be paid. We will also use these funds for interim billing purposes as outlined below.
Everybody currently has a Nil Rate Band of £325,000 and anything below this is an “Excepted Estate”. An additional exemption is the Residence Nil Rate Band which is currently £175,000 per person. This potentially means that for a married couple, there is an exempt pot of up to £1m before any Inheritance Tax is due.
If there is a tax liability, or the Residence Nil Rate Band exemption is required, then the full HMRC account will need to be prepared. Where there is a tax liability, we will obtain the reference number from HMRC which needs to be quoted on the full account.
Once the draft valuation has been approved, we will then prepare the IHT400 account, together with the necessary schedules. We will send you the IHT400 to approve and once you have done this, if there is a tax liability and there are accounts where the liability can be paid from, we will send you the IHT Direct Payment scheme form to sign so that it can be sent to the relevant institutions to pay the tax. The tax needs to be paid within 6 months after the month of the date of death before interest is applied to the full amount.
At this stage, we will bill for you for 50% of our fixed fee and when settled and once we have received the Direct Payment scheme form(s), we will submit these to the relevant institutions and send the HMRC paperwork to them.
HMRC advise that they will issue the information needed to obtain the Grant within 5 weeks of receipt.
As soon as the information has been received from HMRC, we will draft the Legal Statement through the HMCTS Portal. The draft statement will be sent to you for approval within one week of receiving the information from HMRC.
Once you have approved the Legal Statement, everybody named will need to sign it and we will arrange for this to be circulated.
At this stage, we will bill you for the final 50% of our fixed fee and ask you to confirm how many copies of the Grant you would like (£16 each). This, together with the application fee for the Grant (£300) is also requested.
As soon as we have received the signed statement, the original Will (if any) and any other required documents; our bill has been paid and we have received the application fee and monies for the Grant(s) we will complete the application for the Grant. Within one working day of doing this, we will send the necessary paperwork to the Probate Registry by Recorded Delivery.
The Probate Registry will acknowledge receipt of the original documents by email and the Grants will be issued – either within 20 minutes or 12 weeks. They generally turn the applications around within two weeks.
Once the Grants have been received, we will send these to the asset holders that require them; once all the funds have been received, we will clear any outstanding liabilities and legacies under the Will.
As soon as this process has been completed, we will prepare a set of Estate Accounts showing all monies received and paid out and what therefore remains to be distributed. The Executors are required to approve these before they are sent to the Residuary Beneficiaries who also need to provide their written approval to them before any monies are sent to them.
Once the Estate Accounts have been approved, we will complete the necessary searches at the Land Registry and if clear, monies will be sent to the Residuary Beneficiaries and our final bill settled.
Service Information
Wills & Probate Solutions Ltd will charge a fixed fee of 1% of the Gross Value of the Estate. This is the total of all the assets (property, bank & building society accounts, stocks & shares and personal belongings) held by the deceased as at the date of death, prior to the deduction of debts and liabilities (including funeral costs). We will endeavour to take this from monies held on account and will prepare interim bills at the following stages:
Where an HMRC account is required; and/or where the Legal Statement has been approved.
The disbursements that would be required on top of this are:-
Grant application fee – £300
Copies of the Grant – £16 each
In addition to this, there are other potential disbursements which are in addition to our fee and paid to third parties:-
S27 adverts in the London Gazette and the local paper to the deceased;
Missing Asset searches starting from £325 + VAT.
Insurance to cover various aspects – to be confirmed when information is known.
Example:- the Estate includes a property, 2 bank accounts, shares and there are 2 beneficiaries and valued at £1m. Legal fees undertaken by Wills & Probate Solutions Ltd to include: valuing the Estate, preparing & submitting IHT400 & schedules; *preparing the Legal Statement for submission to the Probate Registry;administering the Estate once the Grant has been received. Wills & Probate Solutions total invoice £10,000 PLUS Disbursements to include £300 to Probate Registry to apply for the Grant + £48 for 3 Grants (at £16 each). *These figures do not include any Inheritance Tax liability.
if monies are not being held in our client account, then bills will be raised at these points and once settled, the documents will be submitted. Any such bills are part of the 1% fixed fee.