Solicitors cost for wills.

T

twofor1

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Myself and Mrs t have recently been quoted €600 plus VAT for 2 straightforward wills, it was more than I expected.

I know there are free templates and low cost DIY wills available.

Anyone made a will with a solicitor recently, if so what was the cost ?
 
Some of the credit unions as part of the benefits of membership can arrange with a solicitor.

Need to read through the Will carefully though as I did see a relative having to pay a release fee when Probate was being processed. The solicitors had included a clause that a fee would need to be paid if they wanted to use their own solicitor. As far as I can recall it was slightly less than €200.
 
Up Rovers said:
Some of the credit unions as part of the benefits of membership can arrange with a solicitor.

Need to read through the Will carefully though as I did see a relative having to pay a release fee when Probate was being processed. The solicitors had included a clause that a fee would need to be paid if they wanted to use their own solicitor. As far as I can recall it was slightly less than €200.
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Nothing free there so.
 
Find a new solicitor. €600 is a rip off, Mother paid €150 about 2 years ago to put one in place
 
Why not just do it yourself. That's what we did. Especially if it's straightforward i.e. you're both simply leaving everything to each other.
I've written wills for a few of my friends and it's simple unless there are trusts etc. The most important thing to remember is that a beneficiary cannot be a witness. You need to have two witnesses sign with you and they cannot benefit from the will, otherwise it will be invalid.
If you wish I can do a draft for you & see what you think. Let me know.

If you have young kids, it would be even more important to draw up a guardianship will in the event of, God forbid, anything happening to the two of you simultaneously. Again, if you want to hear a little more on this let me know.
 
Gas to see €300 for the legal document that dictates how your entire wealth is distributed when you die described as “a mad price” and “a rip off”.

What’s a fair price?

A tenner? A packet of crisps? €120? €80?

€300 is the price of a so-so meal out for a family of four.
 
Repeating myself from a previous post here, but anyway: I and most solicitors prepare wills at a financial loss, because there is a public perception that a will should cost very little and it is very hard to either refuse the work or to charge properly for it without giving offence. Also, there is a strong tradition in the legal profession that cost should not get in the way of a will being made. I have friends in the UK, married with no children, who have paid £900 for a pair of wills. My normal charge varies from zero to €200 including VAT.
 
A relative of my own once paid a token sum to get their will done with a local solicitor. They thought they had a great bargain. And when they died in old age, the same solicitor charged their family €60,000 to process their moderately-complicated estate, as the market value of an asset they owned at death had been sharply but temporarily inflated by Celtic Tiger era development potential.

Watch the pounds, the pennies will look after themselves.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Couldn't agree more.

Never appoint a solicitor as an Executor.

Brendan
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At least in part because many people promote this line, I and many solicitors have a policy of refusing to be an executor. In one such case, my now deceased client all but begged me to take on the role. Instead, he named his children as executors. After his death, they incurred more than €1m in legal costs fighting with each other (excluding my fees). I cannot say that all of this cost would have been avoided if I was the executor: I can certainly say that most of it would have been avoided. Unfortunately, the position promoted on this site and elsewhere re solicitor executors means that it will always be an unacceptable professional risk for me to take on an executorship, even where the specific facts of the case would more than justify it.
 
MOB said:
At least in part because many people promote this line, I and many solicitors have a policy of refusing to be an executor. In one such case, my now deceased client all but begged me to take on the role. Instead, he named his children as executors. After his death, they incurred more than €1m in legal costs fighting with each other (excluding my fees). I cannot say that all of this cost would have been avoided if I was the executor: I can certainly say that most of it would have been avoided. Unfortunately, the position promoted on this site and elsewhere re solicitor executors means that it will always be an unacceptable professional risk for me to take on an executorship, even where the specific facts of the case would more than justify it.
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More than likely a lot of people advocating not using a solicitor as an executor, have never been involved in sorting out so called legacies, that never were.
 
To answer the OP, husband and I paid a total of €370 for two reasonably straightforward wills in April 2020. Our Wexford solicitor gave us good guidance (including suggesting we appoint joint executors which made sense in our case) and made the process straightforward and easy given we were all in strict lockdown at the time. I'm sure prices vary by area but €600 does seem on the upper end.

At the same time I looked into the DIY route for my will-resistant single 75y London-based brother and concluded that while it's better than nothing, legal input can be extremely useful. I doubt he's done anything about it yet in which case I'm praying that he outlives me!
 
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