Costs Matters …or, Costs Matter?
All lawyers have long been professionally obliged to provide a client with costs information (and a likely estimate of the case duration) at the outset of any matter.
The point we must emphasise is that, in the way that we at DRA Legal operate, you will not be committed to using ourselves unless and until you as a consumer are truly made aware of what the end bill is likely to be.
NOTE: - The example fees shown here in our website are guides only, as at 2024.
As well as telling you what our professional fees are, we work very hard to quote to you the exact sum you will need to pay in disbursements. “Disbursements” are monies which we pay out to others, on your behalf, such as Land Registry document fees.
If you do go ahead and ask us to open a file for your matter, you will still not actually be committed to using us. What will happen is that you will receive our written fee & cost estimates with our very first letters to you. If you remain content to proceed, having had sight of the entirety of our terms, you would sign certain copies and return them to us by way of formal instruction. Within our T & C, we guarantee that we will not alter our fee without having discussed with you and agreeing the reasons behind any alteration.
In a nutshell – at the end of a job, there will be no surprises on your bill!
Other costs
Referral Fees
If your Estate Agent or other Advisor recommends (possibly quite strongly) that you should select a particular lawyer, then it is highly likely that a referral fee is to be paid by the Solicitor or Conveyancer to the agent..
In reality it is of course YOU paying the referral fee. You should always ask your lawyer whether or not a referral fee is being paid, even if the firm’s initial letter is silent on the point. You should take care to establish the positon on referral fees before sigining a law firm’s initial ‘retainer’ letter, or Terms & Conditions, as it may be in those documents that the fees are set out.
The typical fee that DRA Legal will pay to a third party is £50 including VAT, or less than £43 plus vat. The reason that DRA Legal has this policy is that we have to absorb the cost, ourselves, out of what we know is already a highly competitive legal fee. Where a higher referral fee is paid it is because the referrer will perhaps be another professional, such as a firm of WillWriters. The referring firm will have carried out helpful work and (with their own client’s consent) they will have collected relevant information and provided us with important background information.
The reason that another professional such a WillWriter may refer clients to us is that the type of work referred to us is termed “reserved legal services”. This is work classified by the Legal Services Act 2007 as that which can only be carried out by Licensed Conveyancers, Solicitors, Barristers & Legal Executives.
Bigger firms than ours, or “cheap” online providers, will often use referral fees in a way which might be characterised as “buying work”; the worry for consumers in such circumstances is whether the firm will then use unqualified or inexperienced staff or “case-handlers” for much of the Conveyancing work, so as to cut costs. We stress that referral fees themselves are not at all “wrong”, but a central point of the CMA Report outcome is that consumers must be be given full transparency as to the monies they are paying, to whom, and what for. In this regard, clients are entitled to know that some firms may pay referral fees to agents of around one third of the basic legal fee that you have been quoted. We ourselves, at DRA Legal Ltd simply cannot afford to compete on that basis, if we are to be able to provide to you the dedicated service of our fully qualified and experienced legal professionals.
Finally, and again, we do of course recognise that many clients are extremely costs-focused and are fully comfortable in dealing with more remote or less accessible lawyers, and you may want to “shop around”.
However, we at DRA Legal take the view that clients wish to entrust their legal matter to a firm which is fully open & honest as to costs, and in addition is accessible, with fully qualified and experienced staff.
We sincerely believe that we meet this criteria.
How do we at DRALC compete?
Firstly, we are confident that our own fee estimates are given to the consumer with full transparency – we do not ‘hide’ any ‘extras’. We always provide the fullest possible quote based on the information you give us at the outset.
We are confident that, given the above, we will always be able to quote a fee which is competitve and attractive to any clients who are comparing multiple lawyers’ prices.
That said, we will say that we do not set out to compete purely on price; instead we compete on Service. Subject as above our legal fees are honest, clear, and competitive. But we will never claim to be “cheap” just to receive your instructions. We firmly believe that consumers of legal services – in particular those involved in such major matters as home sales & purchases, do recognize that their cases should not be entrusted to unqualified or inexperienced persons.
We are aware of studies which suggest that only 5% of consumers will choose their lawyer on the basis of price alone. This is why we emphasise again that 'service is king' and we refer potential clients to the well-respected consumer review service Trustpilot.
Please visit our Trustpilot page to see our up to date ratings along with genuine client reviews.
Other Legal Services – Probate , Wills, Power of Attorney
Whilst Conveyancing is an important part of our business offering, we are – in exactly the same way as solicitors – fully regulated and qualified so as to meet your requirements in the area of Wills, Probate, and Powers of Attorney.
Other sections of our website set out further information about these services.
Regarding costs and fees, we set out here our typical fees.
WILLS
(assuming no major complicating factors)
Single Will – £225 plus VAT at 20%
Double, or Mirror Wills – £350 plus VAT
Work involving your property (houses & land) will often be advisable when making Wills. The work may include altering the way in which jointly-owned property is held. The benefits of such work (broadly termed 'estate planning measures' can be advantageous in as regards Inheritance Tax, and regarding the spectre of potential Residential Care Fees. Such additonal fees are typically a modest £175 plus VAT, per 'complication' (such as if you have multiple properties eg. 'buy to let'.
Archiving work, which includes indefinite storage within our own, secure offices adds £10 plus VAT. (our premises are a former Bank!)
Also included free is our advice as to how the family home or any jointly-owned property can be impacted by the spectre of Care Fee costs and Inheritance Tax.
Note that if Land Registry work is needed, to give effect to any helpful measures, we will quote separately. For example, we commonly meet cases where we discover that the family home may be registered in the sole name of the husband. This leads to a need to transfer the property from one name to two. It may also ‘trigger’ a compulsory First Registration of the Property at HM Land Registry.
Regarding the timescale, we are under an obigation to proceed as rapidly as possible once we have received your instructions for Wills. In practice we would expect to complete your Wills, from initial meeting through to you signing (‘executing’) the Wills. We must work even more quickly than this, if for example we have been made aware of a need for urgency, if for example you have health worries, or are to undego surgery, or if you were separating or divorcing.
PROBATE
Please see our separate section on this topic, on our website. At the simplest level, we would be able to obtain the Grant of Probate for you at a fixed price of (typically) between £750 and £1,250. Much of course depends on the scale and nature of the assets held by the deceased person, and whehter or not Inheritance Tax will be payable.
This method would involve you yourself providing to us full and complete information regarding the deceased and his or her assets. We would not ordnarily be “going on record” with any banks, building societies, investment firms, Department for Work & Pensions, etc. Nor would we in basic probate cases be attending to the calculation or payment of Inheritance Tax (if any).
For a “full administration” case – ie where we take on, on your behalf, all of the above, including distributions of monies to beneficiaries, we would charge an hourly rate. Our hourly rate will typically be £195 to £235 per hour, with letters and time billed in “units” of 6 minutes. Note that all legal fees are subject to VAT at 20%.
Tax matters pertaining to the deceased's estate would not be part of our work. You may use the Gov.UK "tell us once service" which notifies many State departments. You will be able to ascertain by this method or via your examination of the deceased person's papers whether or not he/she submitted an annual 'self-assement' in his/her tatx affairs. It would be the executor's responsibility to attend to this. We ourselves are not tax advisors hence you would take separate advice on Income Tax etc. We can refer clients to a specalist if required.
In probate cases there is always a ‘Court Fee’ which is currently some £293.
Note that a goverment review in 2020 had proposed quite significant new fee scales for Probate. However, the new proposals, which involved fees being charged in bands, have not yet been implemented. If and when effected, the result will be that Banks etc will always insist that you obtain a Grant of Probate in order to release a deceased’s monies to the Estate. This will be a major change, which will inevitably involve higher costs than at present. The new fees have been attacked as a ‘secret death tax’, but the Courts & Tribunal Service does defend the increases as being necessary to meet the costs of providing the service in a way which reflects the ability to pay. Politicial policies and sensitivities will determine whether or not these proposals are ever implemented.
If you are currently holding off obtaining probate in the estate of any deceased, eg if a property or other significant asset is not yet to be sold, you may wish to contact us for no-obligation advice.
The timescale for Probate work varies enormously. If we are obtaining the Grant of Probate on your behalf, in a relatively simple estate where no Inheritance Tax (IHT) is payable, then 4 weeks or less is required. Where IHT is payable, or if the deceased had extensive assets, such as property, shares, and with multiple bank & investment accounts, then typically 6-12 months will be required. Where Probate does become protracted, it is usually possible to make interim distributions of gifts or bequests to Beneficiaries of the Deceased’s Estate.
POWERS OF ATTORNEY (LPA)
There are two types of Lasting Power of Attorney. One is for ‘Property & Affairs’. & the other ‘Health & ‘Welfare’.
Our fee for a single LPA, for one person is £300 plus VAT at 20%. Two LPAs are £450 plus VAT. If a couple, eg husband & wife, wanted all 4 LPAs, our fee would be £750 plus VAT. Our work would involve meeting with you and where appropriate your family, completing all relevant forms and ultimately submitting the application(s) to the Office of the Public Guardian (OPG). Note that the OPG is part of the Court of Protection (COP), and the Court fee for each LPA is £82.
As for the timescale, LPAs will involve two initial meetings, during whch you and your Attorneys will give us instructions and will sign the various documents. This will take, typically 2-3 weeks (depending on the geographical location of your Attorney/s). After this, we are obliged to apply to the OPG, which being a Court application has it’s own ‘lead-time’, typically some 3-4 months.
Our fees and any related costs in Wills, LPA and Probate matters will be always be quoted to you at the outset and we will not vary such costs unless we have agreed with you the reasons why.
Please do not hesitate to telephone us (01924 601043) if you wish to discuss your requirements.
Derek Adkins September 2024