A. Williams & Co. (Solicitors) A. Williams & Co. (Solicitors) - Practice Areas

Information on the Wills & Intestacy Services we provide and those we do not provide

We provided advice and representation in the following areas;

Provision of legal advice and representation
Applying for the grant
Collecting and distributing the assets

We do not provide services in respect of legal aid or mental health issues.

Our standard range of costs with additional fixed fees for additional work

Applying for the grant, collecting and distributing the assets

We anticipate this will take between 20 – 30 hours work at our Principal’s charging rate of £350.00 plus 20% VAT per hour – £500.00 plus 20% VAT per hour . Total costs including the cost for preparation of our instructions and written advice is estimated at £7,000 (plus 20% VAT) – £10,000 (plus 20% VAT).

The exact cost will depend on the individual circumstances of the matter. For example, if there is one beneficiary and no property, costs will be at the lower end of the range. If there are multiple beneficiaries, a property and multiple bank accounts, costs will be at the higher end. If there are also several possibilities as to where the deceased passed away, this may involve additional costs.

In all circumstances, we will provide you with our written advice which be based on our instructions and will set out the basis for the documentation to be filled in so there are no discrepancies on the facts later on.

We will handle the full process for you. This quote is for estates where:

There is a valid will
There is no more than one property
There are no more than 1 bank or building society account
There are no other intangible assets
There are only 1-2 beneficiaries
There are no disputes between beneficiaries on division of assets. If disputes arise this is likely to lead to an increase in costs
There is no inheritance tax payable and the executors do not need to submit a full account to HMRC
There are no claims made against the estate.

Disbursements

Disbursements to be included in addition to this fee:

Probate application fee of £215
Swearing of the oath (per executor) £10
Bankruptcy-only Land Charges Department searches (per beneficiary) £5
Advert in The London Gazette (protects against unexpected claims from unknown creditors) £84 (plus 20% VAT) - £114.60 (plus 20% VAT)
Post in a Local Newspaper (this also helps to protect against unexpected claims) dependent upon the newspaper

Disbursements are costs related to your matter that are payable to third parties, such as the Probate Registry court fees. We handle the payment of the disbursements on your behalf to ensure a smoother process.

Potential additional costs

If there is no will or the estate consists of any share holdings (stocks and bonds) there is likely to be additional costs that could range significantly depending on the estate and how it is to be dealt with. We can give you a more accurate quote once we have more information
If any additional copies of the grant are required, they will cost £1.50 each (1 per asset usually)
Dealing with the sale or transfer of any property in the estate is not included.

How long will this take?

On average, estates that fall within this range are dealt with within 2 – 4 months. Typically, obtaining the grant of probate takes 4 – 8 weeks from the submission of the application. Collecting assets then follows, which can take between 4 – 6 weeks. Once this has been done, we can distribute the assets, which normally takes a minimum of 4 – 12 weeks.

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Services Provided

Work Done

Please contact us for more details on any of the foregoing :

EMPLOYMENT LAW

We represented clients on a wide range of employment matters, including;

redundancy, unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal
race discrimination claims
sexual harassment claims
disability discrimination
drafting compromise and conciliation agreements

Example of recent work;

Filing a claim on behalf of a probationary employee against her employer for ‘automatically unfair dismissal,’ and representing the employee at the Tribunal.
Acting on behalf of an employer in the private sector in relation to a claim for sex discrimination, breach of contract and personal injury and working with ACAS towards reaching a conciliated agreement.
Providing advice to an employee in public office in respect of discrimination claims against the employer.

FAMILY LAW

We provided advice and representation in the following areas;

separation and judicial separation .
divorce petition grounds.
financial matters arising out of separation or divorce.
Review of tax and pensions matters.
International and jurisdictional issues.
Injunctions and restraining orders.
Cohabitation and premarital contracts.

Where children were involved, our areas of advice and assistance included:

Custody issues and maintenance payments towards the children.
Residency issues.
Contact order issues.
International Adoption advice.
International Wardship and guardianship issues.

Example of recent work;

Advice and opinion on cross cultural marital laws and the validity or otherwise of a subsequent 18 year ‘marriage’ when the spouse was still married at the time of the alleged marriage.
Advice and opinion on marriage by cohabitation and repute.
Advice and opinion on implication of a bigamous relationship.
Providing instructions to experts for handwriting analysis reports to the court.
Advice on Calderbank offers for settlement.
Advice andinstructions to the handwriting expert division of the police in a foreign jurisdiction.
Advice on appeal of the maintenance pending suit order and on stay of execution of the freezing order. The issue of Maintenance pending suit by the court was considered especially where the jurisdiction of the court was being constested.
Acting on behalf of a client to enforce the terms of a consent order for the upkeep and maintenance of their children following the break down of the marriage and subsequent divorce.
Filing and defending applications to court for third party debt orders, charging orders on the relevant properties and registration of the orders with the land registry to enforce the arrears of maintenance payments accrued.
Applications made to defend hardship applications.
Applications for leave to enforce arrears of maintenance orders.
Notification of Home office and subsequent litigation to prevent child abduction from a foreign jurisdiction.
Agency and representation in the family court on behalf of a disabled great aunt for defined contact with her great nieces.

WILLS & INTESTACY

We have represented and provided advice to international clients in matters involving contentious probate and intestacy disputes either directly or through our vast network of international law firms sometimes where the client could not travel overseas or where litigation had already been commenced against the client in the UK or overseas. In one instance, in the High Court at the Strand, we provided evidence of a mutual will which was not validly revoked by a testator to set aside a later will made by the testator which was not in favour of the testator's spouse. We have successfully "warned off" caveats filed against the applicants for letters of administration in overseas jurisdiction, conducted relevant searches at the Probate Registry, provided advice to clients on the resealing of grants of administration and successfully prevented a deceased's estate being being taken into receivership pending the grant of letters of administration. Clients include individuals and families from the UK, India, Nigeria & USA.

RESIDENTIAL CONVEYANCING

We provided advice and representation to both landlords and tenants in respect of their rights in applications to acquire the freehold of leasehold houses and lease extensions of both flats and houses. We also advised property owners on short-term lettings for investment purposes and prospective tenants on the terms of tenancy agreements for occupation.Additional work done included;

Property conveyancing in England and Wales.
Cross border property trust litigation.
Remortgaging.
Advice on Cross border property finance.
Preparation of lease extensions.
Preparation of Licences to Assign.
Effecting Charge of property in the Land Registry.
A consideration of the effect of a freehold merger on existing underlease covenants and section 139 of the Law of Property Act 1925.

IMMIGRATION

We provided advice and representation on the following issues;

Preparation of work permit applications.
Rights of detainees in immigration matters .
Entry clearance for Highly Skilled Migrants, sole representatives of foreigncompanies, businessmen or those with self-employed status, self-employed writers, composers and artists, retired persons or independent means, investors and innovators, and students.
Advice in relation to the dependents of persons admitted under the above categories.
Advice as to rights of entry and leave to remain for spouses of British Citizens, EU Citizens and those settled in the UK.
Naturalisation.
Human rights applications.
EU issues.
Conduct of adjudicators and Tribunal appeals.
All tax, property and other issues arising out of immigration to the UK.

Other examples of recent work;

Applications for the highly skilled Migrant Programme.
Successful prosecution of Appeals of visa extension renewals by the Home Office and formulation of grounds of appeal.
Collaboration with a US specialist immigration law firm on the processing of US immigration visas for UK and African citizens and businesses that had been refused appropriate US B1/B2 visas or green card residency status by the US immigration authorities.