Myself and my sister are joint executors of my recently deceased aunts will. She has left everything to me and my 2 sisters, excluding some small monetary gifts to friends and family. Her estate consists of a house valued around 550k and roughly 100k in bank accounts. After meeting with her...
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@homer911 above is a quotation from a solicitor's communication for extracting the grant of probate on behalf of a client. I doubt very much if the probate office would charge >€5.5k!!!
What the Probate Office charges you is stamp duty based on the size of the estate.
A solicitor will charge you a professional fee and V.A.T. as well as outlays for the application for the Grant of Probate.
Additionally, you pay the relevant stamp duty.
My understanding is that of homer911 at #5 above i.e. there is a higher stamp duty on personal probate applications.
I think this is because personal applications require closer scrutiny by the Probate Office where they are dealing with "civilians" !
I believe that the Probate Office can direct a personal applicant at any time to discontinue the application and to instruct a solicitor instead.
The Probate office will send back the application forms if there are any mistakes. They include a checklist highlighting the errors.
They don't offer legal advice about correcting the errors.
When we did DIY probate the forms were returned 3 times.
The errors were relatively easy to correct.
This level of mistakes did not cause any problems with the Probate office.
If a person starts to pester the Probate office with legal questions, it might cause the person to be told to get a solicitor to continue their application.