|
Hi Leif I can't comment on the number of hours booked for the work but I can say that the hourly rate being charged seems to right. I just had a small problem handled by a local (East Midlands) solicitor and he was £150/ hour + VAT and his junior, who was a trainee doing pupillage, was £90/hour.
|
It is possible to use the Law Society to ask for a "remuneration certificate" whereby the Society checks and validates the hours charged by the complainant's solicitor. It's not a service I've use personally but I've heard it recommended. Have a look at this link for full details:
www.lawsociety.org.uk/choosingandusing/payingforse...w
|
|
|
|
18k. It sounds reasonable enough. By which I mean that it sounds typical enough. Winding up an estate with anything more than just a house is a right faff and a real paper chase. 100 hours doesn't sound too bad. Remember the houses will still have tenants who require servicing, and presumably the solicitor is dealing with their blocked drains and blown lightbulbs; rents need collecting; tenants need informing etc. etc. etc.
Never, ever, let a solicitor deal with a deceased person's estate. Mostly it's a paper chase that anybody can do. Go to a solicitor on a per-hour basis for the difficult bits, but never let them charge a flat rate on the value of the estate - that's a licence to print money for them.
|
Your uncle, as executor, hired the solicitors. If he did not agree to the flat charge, he doesn't have to pay it. If he did agree to it, why is he now complaining about it?
Solicitors can overcharge when dealing with substantial estates, but they do far more for their money than estate agents do...
Well I would say that wouldn't I?
I endorse the suggestion to go for a remuneration certificate.
|
18k. It sounds reasonable enough. . . . 100 hours doesn't sound too bad.
18,000 divided by 100 equals £180 per hour. That's not my idea of reasonable.
|
|
You may not think so, but for a senior solicitor (probably a partner) it is about the going rate. You will pay double that in London.
|
180 per hour. Assume that you manage to charge 4.5 hours per day, for 46 weeks of the year. That's 186k. Out of that you have to pay your secretary, office rent, secretary's car, insurance, VAT man... that's not outrageous.
Go for a City firm and you'll pay three or four or five times that.
|
|
|
|
180 an hour? with some dealers now charging 70 an hour for servicing rates?
Seems about right to me.
------------------------------
TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
|
|
Just remember that 180 quid an hour does not go straight into a partner's pocket. Staff wages, infrastructure costs (Buildings, IT, other costs) all take a bite. Personally in exactly 3 years months I will care very little and do these jobs to pay for holidays and cars !
|
|
|
|
Paid 90 quid to have a consultant look at my knee, I was with him all of 15 minutes.
|
I have had 2 unbelievable experiences with the costs charged by solicitors for winding up very simple estates. Both were challenged, which cost extra, and the Law Society said both "were just within the permitted scale maximum." My solicitor was horrified but advised that the cost in fighting it would swallow even more funds. He passed the papers to a colleague(without telling him the background) who at a quick glance estimated charges at 20% of those deducted.
One elderly relative was persuaded by the solicitor to appoint herself as the executor, - he thought I was! One asset took up 2 paragraphs in the detailed bill, writing to dispose of the asset(full details of the asset serial no etc), bringing the monies onto account and placing on deposit at x% interest etc.
The asset? a £5 Premium Bond.
|
Trouble is, if the solicitor is appointed executor he is working for someone who is dead, so there is no incentive for him to get the done more quickly. This sounds to me like a) a conflict of interest and b) a licence to print money. Ensure your will names someone else as executor - they do not have to do anything beyond engage a solicitor if they want, but the solicitor is working for them, and they can tell him how to behave (eg not sending 6 letters at a time, at £25 each....) - and if performance is not up to the mark, employ someone else.
My sister and I wound up my Grandad's estate - that was pretty small, but still involved 1/2 day trailing round the banks, lots of form filling, a visit to the probate office, doing some conveyancing (I rang solicitor about this - at least £500, so I got a book from the library and did it myself) etc etc.
--
RichardW
Is it illogical? It must be Citroen....
|
Trouble is, if the solicitor is appointed executor he is working for someone who is dead, so there is no incentive for him to get the done more quickly. This sounds to me like a) a conflict of interest and b) a licence to print money. Ensure your will names someone else as executor - they do not have to do anything beyond engage a solicitor if they want, but the solicitor is working for them, and they can tell him how to behave (eg not sending 6 letters at a time, at £25 each....) -
Exactly,
My relative went to have a new will drawn up and did not even know he had appointed the solicitor as his executor. He was under the impression that I was still the executor(as I had been in his previous will). Of course I didn't see the new will until after he died, although he had discussed it with me.
It cost the beneficiaries many £Thousands for largely clerical effort that I could have done easily - closing Bank accounts, paying utility bills, cancelling pensions etc.
|
>>..and did not even know he had appointed the solicitor as his executor. >>
There's a very old saying that where there's money there's always a fiddle.
A pal was telling me yesterday that his elderly mother had been talked over the phone by a double-glazing company into having a new conservatory.
The work was done and it looked good. A few days later the manager of the company turned up on the doorstep to check out the work and see if she was satisfied.
She was and he asked if there was anything else that might interest her, such as a new tiled floor for the conservatory?
Eventually she agreed. He pointed out that it was expensive but he knew someone who could get the tiles at low cost and added that, if she gave him a deposit, he would make sure she would get the tiles required.
A sum of £50 was agreed and handed over. Nothing happened, so my pal got in touch with the double-glazing company, only to learn that they had no manager of the name given.
Turns out that someone had been watching the conservatory being built and had then deliberately screwed the lady concerned for a few quid.
Only relief was that she did have more money in the house but, fortunately, only agreed the sum of £50.
Just how do such toe rags sleep at night?
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What\'s for you won\'t pass you by
|
Thanks for the replies, especially those from people with legal knowledge.
~£200 per hour is normal for a qualified solicitor, but still excessive IMO. But that's another story.
Leif
|
|
|
|
|
|
