Grant Only Service

Where the estate is very straightforward and you feel capable of taking on the liability of dealing with many of the legal aspects yourself then you may wish to use our Grant Only Service, where our involvement is limited to helping complete the paperwork to make the application to the court for a Grant of Probate or Letters of Administration.

 Our Costs

In most cases we are able to offer a fixed fee of £1,250 plus VAT for this service.

However, additional charges will apply if it transpires that the estate does not qualify for the “excepted estates procedure” and a full inheritance tax return is required to be reported to HM Revenue & Customs.

Disbursements

Disbursements are payments for services which are required for the legal process, but which are not provided by us, for example court fees and specialist services. The following disbursements will also be payable:

  • Application fee for the Probate Registry which ranges from £273 to £280

Our ‘Grant Only’ service includes:

  • Advising you what information we require to complete the application to the Probate Court;
  • Completion of the excepted estates inheritance tax form, if required;
  • Preparing the Legal Statement using the Court’s online platform;
  • Arranging for you to sign the Legal Statement and sign any inheritance tax forms;
  • Submitting the Grant application to the Probate Registry;
  • Sending the ‘sealed copies’ of the Grant to you.

Our ‘Grant Only’ service does not include:

  • Making enquiries about the deceased’s assets and affairs;
  • Liaising with the relevant people/organisations to gather the information required for the inheritance tax return;
  • Any other part of the administration of the estate, such as:
    • paying income tax, capital gains tax or inheritance tax;
    • the collection and distribution of money, property and other assets;
    • the preparation of estate accounts;
    • verifying and paying the beneficiaries named in the Will.

Procedure and Timescales

  • Once we have confirmation of your instructions, we will advise you what information we need from you so that we can prepare the paperwork.
  • When we have received all relevant information from you, we will prepare draft papers for your approval. This usually takes 3 to 4 weeks from receipt of all information we have requested.
  • When you have approved and signed the paperwork, we will send it to the Probate Registry within 2 working days of receipt.
  • The Probate Registry usually issue the Grant within 4 to 8 weeks of us sending the signed paperwork to them.
  • We will check the Grant and send you the ‘sealed copies’ which you can then send out to the various banks and financial institutions. We will also send you our bill at this stage.

Other matters to consider

Dealing with an estate often leads our clients to rethink their own affairs and we can help with that too. Should you wish to make (or revise) a Will or Power of Attorney, we would be happy to discuss this with you.

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