Most probate solicitors calculate their fees at £x a per hour plus a percentage of the value of the estate. We feel that this charging basis is fundamentally unjust.

The first problem is that the rate per hour is calculated at the partners charge out rate typically £200 per hour for an established provincial firm. The catch of course is that most of the work is not undertaken by the partner but by an assistant who is probably paid less than £10 per hour.

The second problem is that a chargeable hour is very often not made up of 60 minutes. Many legal firms bill their time in units of 1/10th of 1 hour i.e. there is a minimum charge of 6 minutes. We dealt with a case recently where a client had been charged £72 for 3 unsuccessful phone calls i.e. the recipient of the call did not answer their phone on 3 occasions. This is an outrageous consequence of the result of the 6 minute billing method.

The greatest scandal though is the imposition of an additional charge calculated as a percentage of the value of the estate. The exact percentage varies from one firm to another but a charge of 1% is fairly typical. It takes a probate solicitor exactly the same amount of time to correspond with a bank to close an account regardless of where there is a balance of £1000 or £1 Million. What possible justification can there be for charging one client £10 and the other £10,000 for carrying out exactly the same job of work.

In our opinion percentage based probate fees are wholly unjust and we would like to see the law society change its practice rules in order to discourage their use.