Plain dealing on costs
Every client receives fee information in writing before work begins. Here is how costs actually work in probate, and what makes one estate cost more than another.
The section 150 notice
On taking instructions, and again whenever the picture materially changes, the practice issues a notice under section 150 of the Legal Services Regulation Act 2015 setting out the legal costs, or where they cannot yet be known, the basis on which they will be calculated, together with the outlays to be expected: court and registry fees, valuers, commissioners, genealogists where beneficiaries must be traced, and counsel where proceedings require it. In estate administrations fees are typically met from the estate as a testamentary expense; in contested matters each party's position on costs is part of the strategy and is discussed at the first consultation.
What drives cost in an administration
The honest answer is: the estate's shape, not its size alone. The drivers are the number and nature of the assets, a farm with stock, entitlements and three folios is more work than a deposit account of the same value; the state of the title, since unregistered land and unadministered prior estates add real work; the family picture, with missing beneficiaries, minors and foreign residents each adding steps; solvency, because tight estates demand the statutory order be applied with precision; and conflict, the single greatest multiplier of cost in probate. An organised executor using the practice's checklist genuinely reduces the hours an administration needs.
Contentious business
Contested estates, will challenges, section 117 claims, executor disputes, are contentious business, and the law is strict: In contentious business, a solicitor may not calculate fees or other charges as a percentage or proportion of any award or settlement. Costs strategy in probate litigation has its own logic, including the traditional circumstances in which costs may be allowed from the estate, and it is covered candidly in the article on costs in probate litigation and at any first consultation on a dispute.
Tax
Estates raise tax questions, inheritance tax on benefits, the treatment of estate income and sales, reliefs whose conditions matter enormously, and this practice's discipline is to identify them clearly and ensure specialist tax advice is obtained where it is needed, rather than to offer tax advice itself. Fee estimates distinguish legal work from any tax advisory work so there is no confusion about who is doing what.