After a death, the person left in charge of the estate faces a long list of tasks at the worst possible time, and sooner or later most executors ask the same question: Do you need a solicitor for probate?
The honest answer is that the law does not require one, and some estates can be handled perfectly well without professional help. The better question is whether your estate is one of them, and this article is designed to help you answer it, covering when a personal application is realistic, the situations in which advice really matters, and the middle ground between doing everything and handing everything over.
Please call us free now on 0800 059 0600 or complete a Free Online Enquiry and a member of the team will get back to you soon.
“I cannot fault my experience with Johnson Astills Solicitors. Throughout this difficult time I was made to feel secure, supported and validated – money can’t actually buy these things.”
When Can You Deal With Probate Yourself?
Executors and administrators are fully entitled to apply for the grant and administer the estate personally, and HM Courts and Tribunals Service operates an online application service designed for exactly that. A personal application is most realistic where there is a clear, professionally drafted will with no gaps or ambiguities, the estate is comfortably below the inheritance tax allowances, the assets are simple, the beneficiaries are few, adult and easy to find, the estate is plainly solvent, and the family is in agreement. If that describes your situation, and you have the time and appetite for a good deal of paperwork and correspondence, you may not need a solicitor at all.
When Is Professional Help Strongly Advisable?
Certain features change the picture, because they introduce either genuine legal complexity or real personal risk for the person administering the estate. Inheritance tax is the most common. Where the estate exceeds the available allowances, a full account must be prepared for HM Revenue and Customs, gifts in the seven years before death must be investigated, and reliefs and exemptions must be claimed correctly; errors in either direction cost the estate money.
Other features that should prompt advice include:
- A homemade or ambiguous will.
- No will at all.
- A will creating a trust, for example, for young children or a second family.
- Business, agricultural, or foreign assets.
- An estate that may not cover its debts.
- Beneficiaries who are missing, under eighteen or lacking capacity.
- Any sign of a dispute, whether about the will’s validity or a possible claim for financial provision.
In each of these, the cost of advice is usually far smaller than the cost of the problem it prevents.
What Are The Risks Of Getting It Wrong?
The point many executors do not appreciate until too late is that the role carries serious personal liability. An executor who distributes the estate and later faces a valid claim from an unknown creditor, an overlooked beneficiary, or HM Revenue and Customs can be personally responsible for the shortfall, even where the mistake was innocent. The protections the law provides, including statutory notices for unknown creditors and waiting six months from the grant before distributing, only work if you know to use them. A solicitor’s involvement is as much about protecting you as about processing forms.
Is It All Or Nothing?
No, and this is the option many families overlook. You can instruct a solicitor for a defined part of the work only, most commonly preparing the inheritance tax forms and obtaining the grant, and then collect in the assets and distribute the estate yourself with the legal foundations securely in place.
Equally, you can start a personal application and bring a solicitor in if difficulties emerge, although problems are cheaper to prevent than to fix. At Johnson Astills we are happy to act on either basis, and we will tell you frankly at the outset if your estate is one you could sensibly deal with alone.
How Do Costs Compare?
Reasonable professional costs are paid from the estate rather than by the executor personally, and full details of our charges are published in the probate pricing guide on our website. Against that cost, you should weigh the twenty or more hours a straightforward personal application typically absorbs, the value of allowances properly claimed, and the protection against personal liability. For some estates, doing it yourself is the right economic answer, but for many others, it is a false economy, and professional support proves invaluable.
Talking It Through
If you are weighing up whether your estate needs professional help, please call us free now on 0800 059 0600 or complete a Free Online Enquiry and a member of the team will get back to you soon.
We will give you an honest view of whether you need us, and for how much of the job, before you commit to anything.
‘Having had experience of your organisation, my confidence in you grew. I would have no hesitation in asking you for any necessary representation in the future. Relatives and friends have already been told of my satisfaction. Thank you and well done’
