Hello, I’m Claire Sendall and I’m talking today to Adam Walker, Managing Director of Final Duties.
Q. Adam, why did you set up Final Duties?
A. My father died in May 2009 and I had such a terrible time sorting out his legal and financial affairs that I saw the need for a company that would help other people in a similar situation.
Q. So why did you have such a hard time?
A. Well his solicitor refused to quote a fee for the work then tried to charge 4 times the proper rate.
Q. How do solicitors charge for Probate work?
A. Most solicitors charge an hourly rate and a percentage of the estate. The hourly rate can encourage solicitors to string the job out for longer than is necessary and the percentage charge is still unfair. If there is a balance of £100,000 in a deposit account why should they charge extra money just to close the account?
Another big problem is that customers do not know how much the fee will be until they receive the bill.
Q. How do most banks charge for probate work?
A. Most banks charge a fee of around 4% of the value of the estate. We think this is an unfair way to charge. If there is a balance of £100,000 in a deposit account then a bank charge £4,000 just to close the account?
Q. How does Final Duties charge its fees?
A. We charge a fixed fee based on the amount of work that will be necessary to administer the estate.
Q. How do you know how much work will be involved?
A. We fill out a probate information form. It takes about ten minutes to do over the telephone. This is the form and as you can see it gives us all the information that we need to give an accurate quotation.
Q. What happens next?
A. We send the work out to tender by our panel of solicitors. They have four hours to give us their best fixed price quotation for the work.
Q. What happens after the four hours?
A. We then send the client a written quotation in writing and without obligation. As you can see the quotation is very detailed. It sets out exactly what work we will do and exactly how much we charge.
Q. What happens if the client is happy with the quotation?
A. If the client accepts the quotation they pay our broking fee of £295.00 including VAT. If they don’t there is nothing to pay.
Q. How do your fees compare to other probate providers?
A. Our fees are typically half the cost of using a high street solicitor and a quarter the cost of using a bank.
Q. Once people have had a quotation from Final Duties approximately how many callers accept your quotations?
A. About 7 out 10 people accept the quotation.
Q. Is your quotation guaranteed?
A. Yes. It’s a quotation not an estimate. The price is guaranteed not to change provided that the estate is as described.
Q. Do you not visit the clients at home?
A. No. We find that most people prefer to do everything over the telephone.
Q. Tell me a bit more about the solicitors that you use.
A. All of our solicitors are fully qualified solicitors from large specialist probate firms. Many of the firms that we use are Legal 500 companies.
Q. What financial security do clients have?
A. Final Duties never holds any client money at any time. All monies are handled by our solicitors and fully protected by the solicitor’s compensation fund.
Q. So to sum up, Final Duties has a unique approach to the Probate process. How have you been received so far?
A. Extremely well. We have had lots of positive articles in the press. Final Duties has been featured in The Times, The Independent, The Financial Times, Which magazine and on BBC Television. We are on target to become one of the biggest leading probate providers in the country.
Q. How do people get a quotation?
A. Call Final Duties on 0800 731 8722. It will take about ten minutes and could save many thousands of pounds.
Thank you.
