Foreign Legal Service fees

 

Foreign Probates: fees charged

These are normally cases where the deceased did not live in the UK but had assets in the UK when he/she died.

Examples of fees charged

  • Deceased died domiciled in Australia with an Australian Will and one asset in the UK worth about £90,000. Executor provided valuations and dealt with the closure of the bank account.  Our work limited to obtaining a UK Grant and obtaining relevant information from Australian lawyer.  Fee £1,000. No VAT was payable because the Executor was domiciled outside the European Union.
  • Deceased died domiciled in the USA. Tax is payable on the UK estate.  An estimate for our fee to complete the application for the UK estate and obtain Grant is £2,000.  No VAT was payable because the Executor was domiciled outside the European Union.
  • Deceased died domiciled in Portugal with 2 Wills made in Portuguese, one dealing with Portuguese estate and one homemade Will purporting to deal with UK estate. Needed protracted enquiries with Portuguese lawyers to understand the validity of Wills before applying for UK Probate and an application for an Order from the Probate Registry before the Grant could be issued.  UK assets limited to funds in one bank account, which was subsequently dealt with by client.  Our fee charged on a time record basis was £1,700.

VAT

All charges other than disbursements are subject to VAT at 20% except probates where the executors live outside the EU when no VAT is payable.

Disbursements

The disbursements are typically:

  • the probate fee: £155 plus 50p for each extra copy of the grant of probate required – subject to change by HMCTS at anytime
  • bankruptcy searches: £2 each
  • ID checks – see extras
  • fees for getting office copy entries from the land registry: £3 each
  • Fees for valuation of assets and selling shares: various

Extras

  • We use an independent service to carry out ID searches – this saves our clients having to produce original passports etc. We charge £5 plus VAT per search
  • Foreign currency transfers. If our clients agree we can use a currency exchange service, which gives better exchange rates than the banks. We charge £50 plus VAT to use the service; the banks will deduct their own charges, normally around £15 per transfer.
  • We do not charge extra for electronic transfers, but we do charge £25 per cheque issued to beneficiaries of Wills.

 

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