Wills, Probate & Trust

We have an experienced team of lawyers who specialise in dealing with Wills, Probate, Trusts, Court of Protection, Care of the Elderly and Inheritance Tax and Estate Planning. We offer home visits if you are unable to attend our office in Witney.

A Will is probably one of the most important documents you will ever sign. It enables you to leave all your assets to whom you wish and makes life much easier for those you leave behind. All our Wills are tailored to every individual according to their circumstances. All our Wills are registered on a National Will Register which will avoid an incorrect Will being administered.

We understand the difficulties in times of bereavement and are sympathetic to the needs of our clients. We will guide you through the process of administering an estate efficiently and professionally. We can tailor our services to suit your requirements.

Lasting Powers of Attorney are essential for everyone. They give legal authority to people whom you trust to deal with your financial affairs and property and make decisions regarding your care and welfare. Persons of any age should set up these documents, they are similar to a life insurance policy, we set them up and hope that they are never needed but are vital in times of need.

If a situation arises where a loved one loses mental capacity we assist in making applications to the Court of Protection for a trustworthy person to be appointed to deal with all their affairs on their behalf.

We provide estate planning advice tailored to your requirements and can look after some or all of the aspects of the administration of the estate for you as you wish.

Our Estate Administration Service where you wish us to deal with all aspects of the estate administration typically includes the following:

• An initial meeting with you to take your instructions and discuss the administration of the estate and provide you with some preliminary advice.  We will provide you with a list of the further information and documents that we will need from you to deal with the administration for you
• We will contact all services providers where accounts/assets/debts are held by the deceased and collect in all the information that they provide
• We will submit a tax return to the Inland Revenue on behalf of the estate if it transpires that the estate is taxable
• We will prepare and submit the application for the Grant of Probate to the Probate Registry.  (The Grant of Probate is the legal authority to administer the deceased person’s estate).  The Probate Registry are exceptionally slow to deal with applications at the current time this can take up to 5 months.
• When the Grant of Probate has been received we will collect in all of the deceased’s assets, settle their debts and then distribute their net estate in accordance with their Will
• We will provide you with Estate Accounts setting out all of the financial details of the administration of the estate

In a typical untaxable estate from start to conclusion the timescales can vary depending on the Probate Registry but the whole process can take between 9 to 12 months.  Where an estate is taxable then a typical timescale may be between 12 to 18 months.  If a property needs to be sold then this can delay the distribution of the estate as the sale will need to complete first and the sale process cannot be started until the Grant of Probate has been received.

Our fees as set out in our PRICING INFORMATION page and attract vat currently at 20%.  There are additional disbursements that are not included in our fee as detailed below.

The Probate Registry Fee is currently £271, there is no vat on this.  We may require additional copies of the grant of probate and we will advise you if this is necessary and how much this will cost.

We are obliged to carry out a bankruptcy search on each beneficiary under a Will before we distribute a legacy to them, this is currently £2 per beneficiary and no vat is payable on this.

If we need to send estate funds by bank transfer we charge £48 plus vat of £9.60 per transfer and we will carry out an electronic identity check on each executor and beneficiary at a cost of £22 plus vat of £4.40 per person.  There may occasionally be additional disbursements required and we will discuss this with you before incurring such costs and obtain your agreement before we incur them.