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    Probate Made Simple: The essential guide to saving money and getting the most out of your solicitor
    Probate Made Simple: The essential guide to saving money and getting the most out of your solicitor
    Probate Made Simple: The essential guide to saving money and getting the most out of your solicitor
    Ebook138 pages1 hour

    Probate Made Simple: The essential guide to saving money and getting the most out of your solicitor

    By Andrew Komarnyckyj

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    About this ebook

    Dealing with probate comes at a difficult time when a stressful legal process is particularly unwelcome. Probate can certainly appear daunting in its complexity and can be expensive in solicitors' fees, but it is possible to simplify the process and minimise the cost by taking a logical approach.
    The essentials of probate work do not require special skill or expertise and it is therefore eminently feasible for most people without legal training to do the bulk of the work themselves. This means you can avoid paying expensive legal fees for select parts of the probate, making a saving of hundreds or even thousands of pounds.
    Probate Made Simple, written by a solicitor with over 15 years' experience in wills and probate, sets out the detailed and specific steps to follow in order to work on probate logically, ensuring that the reader completes everything in the the right order and at the right time and that no vital stages are overlooked.
    It also identifies areas of probate where the advice and indemnity cover of a solicitor is beneficial.
    Where the involvement of solicitors is necessary, essential inside information is provided to help the reader negotiate realistic legal fees, no matter the level of professional help required. Guidance on how to minimise and evaluate solicitors' quotes, and get the most out of legal professionals for less - with breakdowns of what typical probate tasks involve, and what charging methods solicitors employ - make the book an indispensable guide for getting fair legal services.
    In addition to this, over thirty template letters are provided as practical examples of the correct approach to follow when contacting banks, insurance firms, beneficiaries of the will, solicitors and others.
    Saving money on probate work in the simple ways outlined in this book could make a real difference to your inheritance and to the sums received by the other beneficiaries of a will. This is the book anyone going through this potentially expensive, stressful and opaque process needs to have to hand.
    Purchasers and potential purchasers of the book are recommended to visit the author's website at www.willsprobateandmore.co.uk to make use of the free supplementary information (available as PDF downloads) which is available to complement the information provided in the book.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarriman House
    Release dateFeb 23, 2010
    ISBN9780857190147
    Probate Made Simple: The essential guide to saving money and getting the most out of your solicitor
    Author

    Andrew Komarnyckyj

    Andrew Komarnyckyj is the Director of a niche legal practice delivering innovative legal services to the public and to other professionals. He had a successful career in sales and marketing prior to qualifying as a solicitor. He studied law by correspondence course while working full time, and was awarded two prizes for achieving the highest marks nationally in one of his law exams. During his legal career he has been the head of the Probate Department for two leading West Yorkshire firms of solicitors, at one of which he became a partner. He has over 15 years legal experience working exclusively in the field of wills, trusts, tax planning and probate. He left conventional legal employment in March 2009 in order to establish Wills, Probate and More, www.willsprobateandmore.co.uk, his own niche legal services company, and to be free to comment on the legal profession as an outsider. He now divides his time between legal practise and writing.

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      Book preview

      Probate Made Simple - Andrew Komarnyckyj

      fees.

      1. Understanding Probate – What Probate Means

      If you want to save money on probate you will need to begin by understanding what probate is.

      The word ‘probate’ is often used rather loosely to refer to the process of dealing with the financial affairs of someone who has died. Strictly speaking, probate is a document which you will need to access the money, property, bank accounts and other assets held in the name of a deceased person who has left a will.

      The full name for this document is a Grant of Probate.

      If the deceased person did not make a will, the document that you will need is called a Grant of Letters of Administration.

      There are many different types of grant, but the Grant of Probate and Grant of Letters of Administration are the most commonly used types, and the only types that most people require. In the interests of simplicity, this book will use the word ‘probate’ for both types of grant, and for the process of dealing with the financial affairs of someone who has died.

      You will find that once banks and other institutions are notified of the death of an account holder, they will freeze his accounts. The accounts will remain frozen until probate has been issued and has been sent to the banks. This often means that no money will be available until after probate has been obtained.

      2. Probate in a Nutshell

      The following steps are required for probate:

      register the death

      arrange the funeral

      pay the funeral bill

      value the money, property, assets and debts of the deceased

      prepare papers to apply for probate

      pay inheritance tax if applicable

      apply for probate

      get probate and cash the assets/obtain the money (i.e. send withdrawal forms to the banks, sell or transfer the house, etc)

      pay the debts of the deceased – e.g. credit card bills, outstanding income tax, etc

      pay any administration expenses (i.e. fees of professionals who have provided their services)

      prepare estate accounts

      distribute what is left to the person or persons entitled under the will (or under the rules of intestacy if there is no will).

      This is not an exhaustive list, but serves to indicate the broad sweep of what is required.

      3. Work That Does Not Require the Input of a Solicitor

      Some probate work clearly does not require the input of a solicitor. Some of it does, depending on the circumstances. The work which clearly does not require input from a solicitor is:

      registering the death

      arranging the funeral

      paying the funeral bill

      valuing the money, property, assets and debts of the estate

      cashing the assets (i.e. sending withdrawal forms to the banks, arranging the sale of the house, etc)

      paying the debts of the deceased – e.g. credit card bills, outstanding income taxes, etc

      paying any administration expenses (i.e. fees of professionals who have provided their services)

      preparing estate accounts (if accounts are needed an accountant might be preferable to a solicitor)

      distributing what is left to the person or person entitled under the will (or under the rules of intestacy if there is no will).

      All the above work is usually administrative in nature and can be done by anybody reasonably literate and numerate who is prepared to put in the time and effort.

      You will note that this is the bulk of the work involved in probate. Much of it is what solicitors actually charge as much as £325 per hour to do.

      4. Work That May Require the Input of a Solicitor

      The work that it may be advisable to give to solicitors is:

      preparing the papers to apply for probate

      calculating the inheritance tax payable on an estate (if the estate is taxable)

      arranging payment of inheritance tax

      obtaining probate

      doing the conveyancing for the sale or transfer of the house (though you could equally consider a licensed conveyancer from whom you might get a better deal)

      advice on any trust issue that arises in your probate matter

      advice on any probate issue that you fail to understand.

      5. Summary of Your Options

      This section sets out the different options available to you. The remainder of the book explains the options in greater depth to enable you to carry them out and save money on legal fees.

      If you have a probate matter, there are three options that you can follow to deal with it:

      You can give it to a solicitor and ask him to do everything.

      You can do some of the work yourself and employ a solicitor to help out with the legally-challenging aspects of the matter.

      You can do it all yourself.

      6. Pros and Cons of the Three Options

      In order to choose the option that is right for you, you will need to have a clear idea of what you stand to gain and what the risks might be.

      The following table provides this information.

      Option 1: Giving the probate to a solicitor and asking him to do everything.

      Possible deciding factors

      If you are named as executor but you do not receive any benefit from the estate, you might just as well give it to a solicitor to deal with as you will have nothing to lose (but it would probably still be a good idea to use the money-saving information contained in the next section if you do this)

      the estate may be large and/or complex and you may feel out of your depth taking on even part of the work yourself

      you may have an aversion to paperwork

      you may not want to do any of the work yourself

      you may be totally risk averse

      the estate may be insolvent, in which case you will not have a financial interest in it and may as well give it to a solicitor.

      Option 2: Doing some of the work yourself and employing a solicitor to help out with the legally-challenging aspects of the matter.

      Possible deciding factors

      You have a financial interest in the matter, i.e. you will receive money from the residue of the estate

      you are not averse to paperwork

      you have the time available to post letters, etc.

      Option 3: Doing it yourself.

      Possible deciding factors

      You have a financial interest in the matter, i.e. you will receive money from the residue of the estate

      there is a will which is clear and easy to understand, or there is no will but it is clear who should inherit the estate

      the estate is a low-value estate and there is no possibility that inheritance tax will be charged

      everyone who will receive something from the estate is an adult and mentally capable.

      7. Recommendation on Which Option to Choose

      In some cases Option 1 is to be preferred. If the estate is insolvent (i.e. the debts exceed the money, property and assets) you could easily come unstuck if you tried to administer it yourself. Moreover, you would have nothing to gain financially. So if the estate is insolvent, Option 1 is recommended.

      Similarly, if you are not a beneficiary and have no personal financial interest in the estate, you may feel it is reasonable to limit your involvement and give everything to a solicitor. Or if you are a beneficiary but only receive a fixed sum from the estate, or a

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