Wirral Life March 2019 | Page 62

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 62 wirrallife.com 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.