the complete premium service

Prob8 aims to provide the most comprehensive estate administration service in the most convenient way to you. It enables you to apply for probate online and lets you view the progress of your estate administration case any time you like.

We will:-

  • provide secure online access to your personal online probate account which will tell you what stage we have reached and the money we know about;
  • assign you a dedicated specialist fully qualified lawyer who will handle your case and be available to answer your questions about applying for probate;
  • provide you with a clear, simple fixed price for the estate administration work we will do;
  • ask you to send us all of the relevant paperwork which we will then sort through for you and prepare a comprehensive schedule of assets and liabilities;
  • value all the assets and liabilities in the estate at the date of death including valuations of all the properties and contents;
  • maintain a schedule of assets and liabilities involved in the estate administration;
  • conduct a search with the Unclaimed Assets Register to see if the deceased had any other assets we do not know about;
  • advertise the death to search for any unknown creditors or beneficiaries;
  • prepare the appropriate H M Revenue & Customs forms and accounts;
  • complete where appropriate, the claim form to enable the uplift in the tax free band for inheritance tax purposes to be claimed on a second death (this only applies to married and civil partnership couples);
  • apply for and obtain the Grant of Probate/Letters of Administration;
  • collect in all UK based assets including arranging the sale of any UK properties that you instruct us to sell (although our fee will not include any fee for sharedealing or conveyancing services which, if we are instructed to handle, would be charged for separately);
  • settle all the estate’s debts and liabilities out of the monies we recover;
  • complete the deceased’s income tax and capital gains tax affairs for the tax year to the date of death and settle any liability from the monies we recover or reclaim any overpayment due to the estate;
  • settle all income tax and capital gains tax liabilities arising during the period of estate administration out of the monies we recover;
  • calculate any inheritance tax liability and advise on any steps which may be open to reduce that liability;
  • arrange for settlement of any inheritance tax which falls due out of the monies we recover;
  • pay the legacies (if any) to each beneficiary;
  • prepare an estate account for your approval;
  • pay the final distributions to each residuary beneficiary;
  • obtain receipts for all payments made when applying for probate; and
  • store our papers.

We sometimes find that other work crops up during an estate administration which is not covered by the premium service fixed fee. For example our fee would not include:

  • conveyancing fees for selling any properties in the estate or stockbrokers’ fees for selling shares;
  • implementing any strategies required to reduce a tax liability, such as inheritance tax arrangements by way of deed of variation;
  • arguing with H M Revenue & Customs over the probate values included in the inheritance tax accounts;
  • handling specialist inheritance tax claims, e.g. arguing with H M Revenue & Customs over business property and agricultural property reliefs;
  • collecting foreign based assets including arranging the sale of any foreign properties and obtaining foreign jurisdiction grants of representation;
  • advising on and/or acting for you in respect of any contentious probate matters arising out of the estate, e.g. arguments over the validity of the will, the mental capacity of the deceased, contesting a will, intestacy (if someone dies without leaving a will) etc.

Unfortunately because life is different for all of us, this list is not exhaustive and there may be other matters which need to be dealt with that also fall outside the list of services we can provide for our fixed fee. Be assured however, we have the specialist expertise to handle anything that may crop up.

If this happens, we will discuss with you what your options are and agree a plan to tackle them including letting you know how our fees will be calculated and agreeing an estimate with you.