What is Estate Administration?
Estate administration is the process of distributing the estate of a person who has died. The estate is the value of all their assets, less money that they owed (e.g. mortgages, inheritance tax).
This requires obtaining from the Probate Registry a ‘Grant of Representation’ once all assets and liabilities have been valued, and then distributing the net estate to those persons entitled to receive it. Where a Will was made by the deceased, the beneficiaries of the estate will be named in the Will. Where no Will was made, the distribution is in accordance with legal rules that apply to intestacy (when someone dies without making a Will).
Our service for obtaining the Grant of Representation only
If you wish to deal with the estate administration yourself, we can offer a Grant Only Service to help you apply for a Grant of Representation to the Probate Registry.
This service is limited to us dealing with the following:
- an Inheritance Tax Return based on the financial information you provide to us;
- a Statement of Truth for Personal Representatives; and
- an application on your behalf to the Probate Registry
You will need to pay a Court Fee of £155.00 when we apply for the Grant, together with a sum of £1.50 for each copy of the Grant that is required.
If no inheritance tax is payable on the estate, our charges for the Grant only service are £500.00 plus VAT.
If the estate is subject to inheritance tax, we would need to complete a longer Inheritance Tax Return, and our charges for the Grant only service are £1,000.00 plus VAT.
How much does the full Estate Administration service cost?
These differ according to whether or not we prepared the Will on behalf of the deceased.
Full Estate Administration charges where we prepared the Will
Where we prepared the Will on behalf of the deceased, we quote a fixed fee, based on whether or not the estate is subject to inheritance tax and the number of each of the following:
- Personal representatives (called executors where there was a Will and administrators where no Will was made)
- Legatees (recipients of specific cash or other gifts made by the Will)
- Residuary beneficiaries (persons who receive the balance of the estate after payment of legacies and liabilities of the deceased)
- Assets of the deceased
- Shareholdings of the deceased
- Liabilities of the deceased
- Properties owned or part owned by the deceased
- Mortgages
- Codicils (amendments made to a Will in a separate document)
- Personal representatives who decided not to proceed with their duties
We find that this method fairly reflects the amount of work to be undertaken, but obviously makes it difficult to publish precise fixed fees that would apply to every estate, but to help you understand what the fees might be in practice, here are three examples of typical estates and our charges, to which VAT at the prevailing rate would be added: