Solicitor including the family home that automatically passes to surviving spouse to calculate his fees

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cassius*

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The family home, held in joint tenancy, passed directly to the surviving spouse after the death of the first spouse. The executors of the deceased spouse authorised the company of solicitors who drew up the will to deal with it. The itemised bill came through and included €595+VAT for professional property transfer fees (which only cost €40 to withdraw the deceased spouse's name with land registry making a personal application) The solicitor has withdrawn that charge! He is including in the deceased spouse's estate the valuation of the family home to calculate his agreed 1% fee. Independent advise from a different solicitor said that as it transfers directly to the surviving spouse it does not form part of the estate. The solicitor disagrees with this. What should the family do next?
 
If you agree in advance to a fee of 1% of the estate, it seems clear that the estate includes the family home, or maybe half the family home.

How much is the estate excluding the house? How much is the house worth?

If the estate excluding the house was €50,000 a fee of €500 would be way too low and I would not object to a higher fee.
If the estate was €1m a fee of €10,000 might be adequate and I would object to adding 1% of a €2m house.

Brendan
 
talk to the first Solicitor to understand why he/she disagrees , I notice you mention first spouse, Was there extra work needed to make sure everything was above board and water tight for your benefit,,
 
I realise it's too late for you now but for anyone else I've done a few of these and always do fixed fee. The work a solicitor does and the value they add is based on the complexity of the estate and the beneficiaries - not how much some things are worth. It's also a common decision to go with the solicitor that drew up the will - sometimes this is the right decision (lifelong relationship, good understanding of complex estate, reasonable price) and sometimes it isn't.
 
cassius* said:
The family home, held in joint tenancy, passed directly to the surviving spouse after the death of the first spouse. The executors of the deceased spouse authorised the company of solicitors who drew up the will to deal with it.
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Are the surviving spouse and the executor(s?) the same person? If not then I think it's the executor's (executors'?) job to query the charges with the solicitor and to ensure that they're appropriate for the work done and not unnecessarily eating into the value of the estate?
 
The property valuation was €400,000 and monies another €400,000 approx. When queried, the solicitor's response was that he includes all assets, including those held jointly.
 
First spouse was misleading, I just meant on the death of one, the other surviving.

The estate was not complicated, the will left everything equally to the children. The family home went to the surviving joint tenant. My understanding is that it should not form part of probate. Two of the children were named as executors. The solicitor had to gather the monies held in various accounts and distribute it equally among the children. By including the family home he is doubling his fees.

The executors queried the inclusion of the home and the solicitor disagreed. What should the next course of action be?
 
Accept the solicitors fee and move on, at the end of the day it's small money and probably will cost more to change solicitor at this stage
Life's to short to be arguing over a few hundred euros in my opinion
 
Cervelo said:
Life's to short to be arguing over a few hundred euros in my opinion
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But it's not a few hundred. It's c. €4K plus VAT and double what should have been charged if the family home was jointly owned under joint tenancy, if it should have passed to the surviving spouse automatically, and if it should not have formed part of the deceased's estate subject to probate.
 
How can any of you including the solicitor who gave Independent Advice know for sure what the first solicitor quoted and agreed,

maybe he would have quoted 2% or some other fee if Instructed not included house in quote,
best to move on
every day you learn something new and makes you wiser in the future

Any dealings I have with solicitors I look for rough outline of total cost including vat so there are no surprise at the end that I overlooked when engaging solicitor,
 
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€4k plus VAT seems reasonable for an estate of any size. I have recently dealt with a case where the solicitors charged €3k plus VAT for an estate where the sole asset was a house worth less than €100k. And it was money well spent, they did an excellent job on it.
 
€8k plus VAT seems a lot for straightforward probate.

For a similar probate I was quoted an hourly rate €350 plus VAT plus outlays, and estimated it would take 8 hours. Seems like a far better way of pricing.
 
But the key question is should the family home jointly owned by the married couple under joint tenancy and transferring to the surviving spouse should one of them die, have been treated as part of the deceased spouse's estate and subject to probate? I am not a lawyer but I thought not.
 
I saw a similar issue on payment of a death in service to a wife. Solicitor who was dealing with the will contacted me about the payment schedule . I told her it was not part of the estate and would be paid direct to the wife and should not be included in the probate fee. She didn't like it as was obviously planning on taking a % as a probate fee.
 
The solicitor seems to have initially interpreted it as we have (everything I can find indicates that joint tenancy doesn't form part of the estate - but it depends how the original quote from the solicitor was worded and you haven't shared that) and then changed his mind and included it. He is also including the full value when clearly 50% already belonged to the spouse!!

It depends if you have had the estate distributed yet and how much the money means to you vs the principal.

On principle I'd write offering the initial fees €595+ Vat (sending proof of the initial itemised amount) + 1% of the estate and let them know if they don't accept that you will take it up with the LRSA. Thats still €5k for them for a simple probate. This may solve it. If not you then have to pursue and can accompany with factual online reviews etc that might make them think their reputation is more than the 3k they are trying to steal from you. Alternatively you could offer €2k as the deceased's portion of the €400k. - you're still being robbed here but sticking to some principles.

If fast easy access to the money is required then maybe better to suck up the 3k loss as a life lesson and move on. You can still leave your factual reviews around the place.
 
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