Professional Executor Services

Introduction

Everyone making a Will is going to need to think about whom they appoint to be the executor(s) of that Will, in other words those who will be responsible for administering the estate after the testator’s death.

Often, if the estate is not a complicated one, a spouse, family member or friend will be able to undertake the task either with or without the help of a solicitor or other professional to guide them through the various stages.

Sometimes, however, it is better to call upon the services of a professional executor – especially if the estate is a complex one or involves issues such as:

    • Inheritance Tax;
    • business assets;
    • trusts;
    • stocks and shares; or
    • the potential for problematic claims being made against the estate.

Richard Nelson LLP can help you by providing you with those professional executor services. By naming us as your executor, either acting alone or in conjunction with someone else such as a relative or friend, you can ensure that any potential problems that might arise in relation to the administration of your estate are avoided.

Our specialist probate and administration team can give you the comfort and reassurance of an excellent service provided by a professional firm of solicitors.

For more information or to speak to someone about making a Will incorporating our firm as your executor:

    • call us on 084 4804 4800, or
    • complete the Call Back form to the right of this page and we will phone you.

Our service can be provided in four different ways, either as:

    • Sole Executor – where we will handle everything involved with your estate and account to the beneficiaries once everything has been dealt with;
    • Joint Executor with a family member or friend – we are happy to act jointly so that we can deal with the difficult issues whilst leaving the family member or friend to undertake the often time-consuming but less complex issues;
    • Substitute Executor – you can name family and/or friends as the primary executor(s) but appoint us as a substitute in the event that they are unable or unwilling to undertake the administration of your estate after your death. This gives you the reassurance of knowing that ultimately there is someone able and willing to undertake the administration when necessary;
    • Advisor to your Executors – if you would rather that family and/or friends were the named executors of your estate, we are happy to provide them with assistance including:
      • providing the documents which they need to undertake their role;
      • obtaining the grant of probate (and where necessary dealing with any Inheritance Tax issues) but leaving the executors to deal with the administration of the estate; or
      • dealing with all aspects of the grant and administration and reporting to the executors at all stages.

      You will find more information about this aspect of our work in the Probate Services section of this web site.

If you wish us to do so, Richard Nelson LLP can deal with the entire administration of your estate including all legal, tax and administrative tasks, so that:

    • your estate is dealt with strictly in accordance with your wishes set out in your Will;
    • at such a difficult time for your loved ones, the responsibility and stress involved in dealing with your estate is in the hands of trusted professionals; and
    • all of the problems normally associated with the administration process are handled by someone who has the skills and resources to do so.

Our Charges

It is always difficult to estimate charges when you do not know what work will be involved. The size and complexity of a person’s estate will vary throughout their lives and problems may only arise after their death where, for example, those for whom they were responsible financially make a claim on the estate because they have not been provided for in the Will.

However, so that you have some degree of certainty as to what the likely costs will be for us to act as executor, we can say that as a general rule of thumb, our charges for acting as executor will be only slightly more than they would have been had we been acting for executors on the administration of an estate. There may be more disbursements because we may have to instruct others to undertake some of the tasks that a personal executor would have done themselves, but these are likely in most cases to be limited.

Thus, our charges† would be likely to be:

For an estate worth less than £100,000 – £1,250 plus VAT, court and oath fees and related disbursements.
For an estate worth more than £100,000 but less than £200,000 – £2,050 plus VAT, court and oath fees and related disbursements.
For an estate worth more than £200,000 but less than £275,000 – £2,850 plus VAT, court and oath fees and related disbursements.
For an estate worth more than £275,000 – in the region of 1.25% of the value of the estate.

What our charges include

The services which we provide break down into a number of areas of work. They include:

Administering the estate
    • identifying and keeping in contact with all beneficiaries, other personal representatives and other relevant persons until the matter is concluded;
    • identifying and contacting all organisations necessary to gather in and administer the estate including banks, financial institutions, insurers and pension providers, and other relevant;
    • identifying and valuing all of the deceased’s assets and gathering these together;
    • taking the appropriate steps to transfer any jointly held assets into sole name of the other owner;
    • discharging the debts and liabilities of the estate, including tax liabilities, from the estate;
    • producing an estate account and providing this to the beneficiaries;
    • distributing the estate and where necessary setting up any trusts;
    • taking all other steps necessary to finalise the estate.

Dealing with property

Where the estate includes a house and/or land:

    • making sure that any buildings and contents continue to be insured until such time as they are dealt with;
    • arranging for post to be redirected;
    • arranging for utilities to be paid and, if the deceased was living alone, for the house to be made secure;
    • transferring ownership of a registered property from the deceased to the beneficiaries;
    • arranging for a specialist conveyancer to deal with any unregistered property if necessary;
    • if a property is to be sold arranging for agents to market and sell the property and for a specialist conveyance to deal with any related conveyancing and transfer;
    • ensuring that the proceeds of sale are accounted for through the estate.

Additional Services

In addition to the above we would expect the fixed fee to cover:

    • corresponding with relatives/beneficiaries to ascertain whether any non-exempt gifts had been made by the deceased during his or her lifetime;
    • completing an Income Tax return for the year in which death occurs;
    • arranging a loan to pay Inheritance Tax due;
    • dealing with others in relation to foreign assets, heritage assets, business or agricultural assets (but not managing any business or agricultural assets pending sale or transfer);
    • dealing with authorised financial advisers in relation to management of the financial assets of the estate.

†Please note also that due to the complexities which such matters bring to the process of administration, a fixed fee charging option will not automatically be available should any of the following apply:

    • lifetime gifts exceeding the annual allowance of £3,000 were made by the deceased during the past 15 years;
    • the deceased owned assets eligible, or likely to be eligible, for Agricultural or Business Property Relief;
    • the deceased had an interest in any assets which were held in a trust for his or her benefit;
    • there are, or there are likely to be, disputes about the Will;
    • there are, or there are likely to be, claims made against the estate under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975;
    • there is a doubt as to the validity or whereabouts of the Will;
    • there is a doubt as to the identity or whereabouts of any of the beneficiaries;
    • the estate was insolvent or the deceased was bankrupt at the date of his or her death; or
    • there are more than six legacies or specific gifts or more than four residuary legatees;

and we may need to make a supplementary charge to cover the cost of the time which such issues might add to the matter.

Please note also that the fixed fee options do not cover:

    • the cost of any related conveyancing or property transactions,
    • any disbursements which need to be paid to any third parties including enquiry agents and the Probate Registry,
    • the provision of specialist services by third parties,
    • any other services which we need to provide which are outside of the normal services provided in a matter such as this, for example contested probates, matters which involve a defective Will or dealing with business and agricultural interests pending sale,
    • any income tax returns or other tax related issues from years prior to the year of death.