Fees to Execute a Will

[FranknMine]

Hi, I was looking for any guidance on a solictiors fees to execute a persons will including writing to financial institutions and executing probate. There is no property involved only bank accounts and shares. Estate is roughly worth €500k in total. I have two quotes of €7k and €9k and both seem excessive to me considering that it is a straightforward will. What would others consider a reasonable fee as I can't find any good guides on the Law Society or Courts web sites ?

 

[MOB]

The Law Society (wrongly in my view) have for many years refused to be involved in any sort of fee guidance, for fear of being accused of breachesof Competition law. The Courts Service has no role in this at all.

Google "low cost probate Ireland" and I am sure you will find lots of service providers who market themselves on offering lower charges.

 

[Johnno75]

If there are no properties or land involved you could have a decent stab at doing it yourself.

Also, have a look at whether the banks and institutions will release funds without the necessity of a Grant of Probate.

My father passed this year and the bank and Life Insurance released funds without a Grant (up to a certain limit). All I had to do was provide a certified copy of the will and fill some forms - I am the named executor in the will.

When I was doing will administration many years ago, the fee charged by the Solicitor was charged as a percentage of the value of the estate.

Things may have changed but it would be well worth your while to try get as much work done yourself, in terms of realisation of assets, which will result in less work for the Solicitor to do.

 

[DannyBoyD]

If you are organised & fairly meticulous the DIY isnt hard.

There's lots of good threads & info here.

 

[DirectDevil]

I dread DIY wills.

If your estate is straightforward probate may well be no problem.
However, some estates may have potential complexities of which a non-lawyer may be unaware thus potentially invalidating the will.
The DIY testator needs to be very careful to comply properly with the rules for construction/execution of a valid will.
I base this on seeing some professional indemnity matters where even a solicitor made a pig's ear of it ! The mess created was quite complex.
Ironically, a small estate can be consumed more quickly where legal disputes arise and disproportionate costs are incurred.

Despite what I have said above, solicitors usually get it right in executing valid wills

 

[DirectDevil]

OP's post refers to execution of the will and subsequent probate as a wrapped up type of transaction whereby one price will be quoted for both.
These are two quite distinct procedures.

If you make a deal with a solicitor to execute the will and to deal with the subsequent probate you may be offering yourself as a hostage to fortune.
The cost of executing a will is ascertainable when instructing a solicitor.
Realistically, a solicitor could only give you a very wide estimate of the likely probate costs.
You cannot ascertain the likely estimated cost of completing probate until the need to do so actually arises.

If you do a wrapped up deal you also bind yourself to instructing that solicitor to complete probate.
BTW you do not have to instruct the solicitor who executed a will to complete the probate unless the solicitor is perhaps an executor.

What some people like to do is to ask a solicitor to quote for completing probate but do a deal on the basis that they will also complete any conveyancing work associated to the estate.