“Private client legal services must address a complex variety of circumstances and needs.  One size definitely does not fit all and our observation is that fixed costs often appear to have a built-in mark-up to reflect the inflexible nature of the costs being offered. Further, the level of value provided is then broadly inconsistent and subject to chance.” – Previn Doshi, Director and Solicitor at PWD LAW Limited 

We are happy to discuss costs with you as fully as you might need to make an informed decision about whether or not to instruct us.  In this, we are confident in the fairness of our costs and do not try to compete with other law firms or service providers.  We recommend that you make full costs enquiries with a range of other law firms for consideration and comparison.  Firms’ websites should contain information on costs or you can obtain costs information by making telephone enquiries.

We offer a personal service from start to finish from a private client solicitor who is an experienced professional executor and trustee holding the TEP designation (see step.org), capable of advising on the full range of non-contentious and contentious probate and trust issues, including litigation (English and Welsh law).  The firm’s typical client is driven primarily by a desire for strong advice, with costs being a secondary or tertiary issue.  From 2019 to date, almost every new instruction accepted by us has been started by word of mouth recommendation.    

In an age of increasingly aggressive spam and marketing contact, we strictly reserve the right to only respond to enquiries where the sender has provided us with their full name, email and telephone number.  This data is treated in the strictest confidence and never conveyed to any third party, but is essential to enable us to verify genuine enquiries.

We are a small bespoke practice and to ensure fairness to our current clients we cannot accommodate requests for witnessing or certifying or dealing with your legal documents unless you are a current client with ongoing instructions.  We also cannot respond to all enquiries where it is clear from the website information that we do not offer legal services in that area of law (although where possible we try to be helpful).

Contentious probate and trusts

We have observed time and again, in litigation of Wills, estate and trust issues, that a failure of the other party and their advisors to get to grips with non-contentious trust and tax law lies at the root of hugely wasteful and unconstructive correspondence, costs and misunderstanding on issues that should not be controversial.  Previn Doshi is a professional trustee and executor, and specialist in non-contentious trusts, estates, Wills, estate planning and powers of attorney, which grounding of expertise in the area being litigated helps us overcome such fundamental issues when litigating on your behalf.  

The first consideration for anyone contemplating court action is ensuring that they understand the potential costs involved and have the financial means by which any action might be brought or defended, and secondly we believe that you must have a genuine case to bring or defend that you can stand behind legally.  We generally do not support speculative claims as being in clients’ best interests and reserve our right to reject advising on any potential claim where we consider the action is underpinned by opportunism and avarice.  We will take a firm but fair approach.

Most of our contentious cases have either settled prior to the issue of proceedings or through alternative dispute resolution after the issue of proceedings and before the end of pleadings (service of particulars of claim, defence and any counterclaim, and any reply and defence to any counterclaim).  We favour top-level counsel (a barrister) since our experience is that less experienced alternatives prove a false economy and we believe that achieving favourable settlement is predicated on the strength of preparation and forward planning matters strategically.

In terms of costs, we ask for a payment upfront on account of costs equivalent to 5-10 hours of work (£1,650 plus VAT at 20% to 3,300 plus VAT at 20%) to cover a proper investigation and report about the viability and costs involved in any potential case.  If matters proceed from there then it is on a time-spent basis.  We occasionally adjust our hourly rates so that different tasks receive different rates, and this is done by agreement with a client, at all times trying to balance what is fair to us as a business and what is fair for our client.

Estate administration (Probate) costs

Our view on estate administration (Probate) costs is that offering a fixed fee service or a “menu” of choices sounds is inadvertently unfair to the customer, who must be somehow cognisant at an early stage about what technical advice will or won’t be required.  Determining this accurately is often not possible on information available at the time.  Moreover, helping someone in a meaningful way to decide what advice they want to pay for is practically impossible without giving substantive legal advice.  This is because the issues involved tend to require a technical level of understanding, for example regarding taxation.

We nevertheless consider that it is possible to offer a fixed fee for Grant of Representation applications where there is no inheritance tax (“IHT”) to pay and other conditions exist.  Then, we develop costs based on the time required to fulfil objectives.  We believe that this is fairer since our costs then reflect more accurately the amount of work actually performed.

So, the basic cost of a Grant extraction where there is a valid Will to hand, no IHT to pay, the executors are in agreement and there is no challenge to the Will or estate, would be £1,980 plus VAT at 20% and disbursements. 

Costs would increase from here on a time-spent basis depending on any additional needs.  Previn Doshi’s current hourly rate is £330 plus VAT at 20%.  There is an exceptionally wide range of circumstances that can arise for a Grant application outside of the most basic position given and we rarely find one case that mirrors another in terms of the work and advice needed.  However, we have noticed that many non-contentious Grant application instructions, even involving the calculation, mitigation and payment of IHT due upfront to HMRC, tend to fall within 7-20 hours of work, the top end of which is equivalent to £6,600 plus VAT at 20% and disbursements.  We provide on request a full and detailed breakdown of time spent so that you can see exactly how we have spent our time working for you and what we have charged you for it.

Full estate administration is another consideration altogether.  We will either advise on a Grant extraction only or on full tax-efficient estate administration, and nothing in-between.  We have strong reasons for this based on careful observation and experience.  During estate administration, opportunities can arise in the form of tax mitigation and we have observed that advice ideally needed can sometimes not be given by a law firm simply because a “menu” option for service was not selected at the outset, at a time when any tax mitigation or other opportunities were not fully appreciated or considered.  As a result, the opportunity can come and go while no-one is any the wiser.  In our opinion, the best way to approach more complex estate administration is to engage a law firm expert in the full range of potential issues, threats and opportunities in estate administration, so that matters such as protecting the estate, business and/or agricultural property relief, lifetime gifts, variations of the estate, appropriations, claims for loss relief and so on, can be examined and advised upon at need.  For PWD LAW, it is therefore a risk management measure of the highest priority to offer only a full service outside of a basic Grant application.  We charge for estate administration by reference to hourly rates applicable at the time and believe that our service offers exceptional value.

Key stages – timescales are difficult to predict in estate administration but broadly the process involves the gathering of information necessary to prepare any court application for the Grant, which can be as straightforward as a week or so, to many months if professional valuations are required or assets are particularly difficult to ascertain for valuation.  The application for the Grant involves firstly satisfying HMRC that the appropriate sum of inheritance tax (if it is payable at all) is settled (we find this takes between 4 and 10 weeks) and then applying to the Court for a Grant (we find this takes between 3 and 16 weeks).  After a Grant has issued the personal representatives may begin the process of realising the estate e.g. selling a house, closing bank accounts, encashing assets, and then distributing the estate to the beneficiaries.  A straightforward estate with a few assets such as a few bank accounts can take as little time as essentially HMRC and the Court take whereas more complex estates for example involving houses (that will be sold) and foreign property can take many months and in some cases years depending on precisely what is required to administer the estate properly.  Much time in estate administration is taken up waiting on 3rd parties to respond although we try to stay on top of and contain timescales where we are relying on 3rd parties for responses/information.  

We expect you to ask us about our costs and timescales and try to make speaking to us about them as comfortable as possible.  Our sole objective here is to leave you feeling properly informed about our costs by being clear and upfront.  It is not in our DNA to employ sales technique and if, at the end of any discussion, you just don’t want to go ahead, we will understand completely.   

Estate administration (Probate) disbursements

Disbursements are payments made on your behalf by our firm, that we recoup from you later on as part of the invoicing process.  Probate disbursements would normally include the court administration fee, and fee for additional copies of the Grant, which are currently £273 (for an estate over £5,000), and £1.50 (per copy), respectively.  The average disbursement outlay for us is around £300 and the fee for additional court sealed copies of the Grant needed to deal with the estate assets.  These court fees might vary from time to time.

Other costs

We charge for Wills advice by reference to hourly rates.  However, we find that more straightforward structure Wills fall in the region of 3-4 hours of work, while costs for more complex Wills, for example involving trusts often fall within the 5-10 hour bracket (at Previn Doshi’s current hourly rate of £360 plus VAT at 20%).   More involved estate planning is normally carried out by working hand in hand with a client’s accountants and financial advisors, and here costs are charged by reference to our hourly rates applicable at the time and can vary markedly depending on the complexity of the work.

For Powers of Attorney and Trust advice, there is once again tremendous variation in the needs of clients and this can only be established by a proper fact-find interview.  We will try to offer a fixed cost for our services where it appears to us that information is sufficiently clear to predict what is required at the start.  If a potential client does not wish to proceed then we would only charge for the advice given at interview.  We have rarely had a potential client for Powers or Attorney or Trust advice fail to proceed from an initial face to face meeting. 

In other matters, we will charge on a time-spent basis with reference to Previn Doshi’s current hourly rate of £360 plus VAT at 20%, and estimate costs for you in bands of 5 hours (e.g. 5-10 hours, 10-15 hours, 7-12 hours, and so on).  Since we are committed to providing upon request a detailed narrative to accompany our invoices, we carry a high level of certainty of being able to demonstrate to clients that our costs are fairly reflected by the chargeable work performed.   Sometimes it is necessary to revise an initial estimate of costs, which we do at the earliest opportunity and explain as clearly as we can why a revision became necessary.   Such revisions can be downwards as well as upwards since the only objective is to estimate the amount of work required at any given time to fulfil a client’s instructions. 

Complaints

We do not anticipate that we shall give you cause to complain.  However, our Regulator rightly requires law firms to draw potential customers’ attention to the fact that when you are a client of the firm then you have a right to complain. 

If you would like your complaint to be dealt with formally, then you should notify Previn Doshi immediately in writing (email is fine) and we will acknowledge your complaint in writing within 7 days and contact you or respond in writing and in full within 15 working days. Making a complaint will not affect how we handle your ongoing case. 

The Legal Ombudsman can help you if we are unable to resolve your complaint ourselves. They will look at your complaint independently and once again it will not affect how we handle your case.

Before accepting a complaint for investigation, the Legal Ombudsman will check that you have tried to resolve your complaint with us first. If you have, then you must take your complaint to the Legal Ombudsman:

• Within six months of receiving our final response to your complaint

and

• No more than one year from the date of act/omission being complained about; or
• No more than one year from the date when you should reasonably have known that there was cause for complaint.

If you would like more information about the Legal Ombudsman, please contact them.

Contact details

Visit: www.legalombudsman.org.uk

Call: 0300 555 0333 between 9 am and 5 pm.

Email: enquiries@legalombudsman.org.uk

Legal Ombudsman, PO Box 6167, Slough SL1 0EH

The Solicitors Regulation Authority can help if you are concerned about our behaviour. This could be for things like dishonesty, taking or losing your money or treating you unfairly because of your age, a disability or other characteristic.

Visit their website to see how you can raise your concerns with the Solicitors Regulation Authority.

You may also have a right to object to our bill by applying to the court for an assessment of that bill under Part III of the Solicitors Act 1974.  Please also note that if all or part of a bill remains unpaid, we may be entitled to charge interest and reserve the right to do so at any point after the bill has become due.