Wills, Trust & Probate

A properly prepared Will protects your loved ones and family and minimises the financial worry during what can be an upsetting and stressful time. At OneLaw Chambers, our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers are here to help you plan for your family’s future.

Our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers can provide you with immediate advice upon a full range of wills, trusts and probate matters.

Our Wills, Trusts and Probate Services

Our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers can advise and represent you in a broad range of wills, trusts and probate matters, including:

• Wills– Our Solicitors and Barristers can help with drafting your Will to make sure your loved ones get the full benefit of their inheritance
• Estate planning – Our Solicitors and Barristers can review the structure of your assets in your estate to make sure it does not attract unnecessary tax and serves your purposes
• Trusts – Our Solicitors and Barristers can help set up and administer trusts to ensure your assets are protected and your family are looked after
• Business succession planning – Our Solicitors and Barristers can help you to hand over control of your business interests
• Powers of Attorney – Our Solicitors and Barristers can prepare Lasting Power of Attorneys to appoint someone to take care of your Health and Welfare and Property and Finance decisions if you lose capacity in the future and can have this registered with the Office of Public Guardian
• Managing Property and Financial Affairs of Elderly or Vulnerable Clients – Our Solicitors and Barristers can act on your behalf if you can’t manage your affairs yourself or on behalf of a family member
• Court of Protection – Our Solicitors and Barristers can represent you on contentious will, trusts and probate matters at the Court of Protection
• Inheritance Act 1975 – Our Solicitors and Barristers can represent you on seeking reasonable financial provision under Inheritance Act 1975 if you have not been adequately provided from a family member’s estate and can demonstrate financial needs

The above list is non-exhaustive and if you have a Wills, Trusts and Probate matter that is not listed above, our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers may be able to help you.

Why Instruct OneLaw Chambers for your Wills, Trusts and Probate Case?

At OneLaw Chambers, our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers regularly assist with many contentious and non-contentious wills, trusts and probate cases. We have assisted and represented many clients from all over the world achieving successful outcomes for them.

Our expert Wills, Trusts and Probate team of Solicitors and Barristers is one of the strongest multi-disciplinary and diverse teams in the country, covering the breadth of wills, probate, tax and trust work. We have considerable experience with high value estates and international wealth and understand the unique challenges this can present.

Our team has several years of collective experience in delivering high quality work in all matters relating to wills and estate administration. They have particular expertise in high value estates and inheritance tax matters.

All work is carried out by a dedicated and experienced probate solicitor or barrister and a paralegal assigned to your case. Regardless of who works on your matter, they will be supervised by Aejaz Mussa, Managing Director and Head of Probate and Estate Administration.

Our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers can help you protect your assets against future life changes such as divorce, manage your wealth and succession planning across multiple countries, and make sure your estate is structured as tax-efficiently as possible.

With our strong partnerships and affiliations with chartered tax advisors and financial planners, we have the capacity to deal with everything in-house and provide you with a complete solution.

We are committed to ensuring that our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers prepare every wills, trusts and probate case with utmost quality and skill so that successful outcome is achieved every time. Our Wills, Trusts and Probate Solicitors and Barristers operate in a friendly and cooperative manner to provide our clients with the best client care and service during the entire wills, trusts and probate case process.

Our Experience

All work is carried out by a dedicated and experienced probate solicitor or barrister and a paralegal assigned to your case. Regardless of who works on your matter, they will be supervised by Aejaz Mussa, Managing Director and Head of Immigration.

Aejaz Mussa is the head of our team and has more than 10 years’ experience in private client work. Aejaz Mussa was called to the Bar as a non-practising Barrister in 2011 and then cross-qualified as a Solicitor Advocate in 2014. Aejaz Mussa has many years of successfully representing probate applications.

Aejaz Mussa is assisted by a team of solicitors, barristers and paralegals in ensuring that you are provided with the best service for your case.

Our Fees

The fees we charge on probate cases vary depending on a number of factors. These typically include:

• whether the work is for non-contentious or contentious;
• The complexity of the work;
• The hours likely to be spent in doing the work; and
• The value of the estate.

The fees are usually charged on a fixed fee basis for non-contentious application work. However, some work can be carried out on an hourly rates basis. The fees for probate work is set out in the table below:

The above fees generally include the following services:

• Provide you with a dedicated and experienced probate solicitor to work on your matter
• Identify the legally appointed executors or administrators and beneficiaries
• Accurately identify the type of Probate application you will require
• Obtain the relevant documents required to make the application
• Complete the Probate Application and the relevant HMRC forms
• Draft a legal oath for you to swear
• Make the application to the Probate Court on your behalf
• Obtain the Probate and securely send two copies to you

Please note that the above fees do not include disbursement costs such as the probate application fees (£0 for estate value less than £5000 and £273 for estate value of £5000 or more),, certification of documents (£75-£150) and other fees associated with application such bankruptcy searches (£2), land charge searches (£3-£6), land registry searches (£3-6), barrister’s fees for contentious probate cases (£3000-£5000) and photocopying and/or postage charges.

The fee for a standard probate application at the fee of £1500 plus VAT would be based on the following:

• There is a valid will
• There is no more than one property
• There are no more than 2 bank or building society accounts
• There are no other intangible assets
• There are 1-2 beneficiaries
• There are no disputes between beneficiaries on division of assets. If disputes arise this is likely to lead to an increase in costs
• There is no inheritance tax payable and the executors do not need to submit a full account to HMRC
• There are no claims made against the estate

Potential additional costs

• If there is no will or the estate consists of any share holdings (stocks and bonds) there is likely to be additional costs that could range significantly depending on the estate and how it is to be dealt with. We can give you a more accurate quote once we have more information.
• Collecting assets and arranging for the distribution of assets are subject to additional fees.
• If any additional copies of the grant are required, they will cost £1.50 (1 per asset usually).
• Dealing with the sale or transfer of any property in the estate is not included.

How long will this take?

On average, estates that fall within this range are dealt with within 4-6 months. Typically, obtaining the grant of probate takes around 16 weeks from submitting the application.