W PROPERTY
L
IMMINENT PROBATE FEE INCREASE
BY SKELLENS ESTATE AGENTS
The Court issue fee for a probate application is due to
increase. Substantially in some cases.
Depending upon the value of the Estate, the Court issue
fee may increase by more than £5000. Anyone handling an
Estate will know that they can’t extract money from that
Estate to pay for the probate proceedings, therefore, the
fees have to be paid prior to the release of funds by the
Estate Administrators. If they can’t pay those fees how do
they secure a grant of probate ?
Guy Platt-Higgins, Director at Skellens says: "It is difficult
to know where to turn when dealing with a bereavement.
Having to deal with the legal probate process just
compounds that difficulty. To make matters worse, the
cost of probate proceedings is due to increase and as the
process is not optional, that fee hike is unavoidable. This is
where we come in…"
"The current probate issue fee is £215.00. Some people
won’t have a spare £215.00 lying around to pay for a
probate application, so imagine the difficulty people will
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face when that fee is substantially increased. What we’re
offering to do is provide help for those who simply don’t
have the funds available to pay for probate proceedings.
So whether that fee is £215.00 or £6000.00, we will consider
covering the Court issue fee in return for being instructed
in the subsequent sale of the Estate property. Hopefully
this will go some way towards relieving the burden which
is inevitable at such a difficult time."
“The legals” :-
The Statutory Instrument required to facilitate the Court
fee increase has been issued and it is due to be enshrined
in law in April. There is some opposition in Parliament but
it has been a long time coming and therefore it is likely to
be implemented either in April or later this year.
To contact Skellens Estate Agents, call 0151 639 5333.