Toby Harris Tax Consultancy : Will Writing

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A really good offer on Will writing: what would you expect, what will it cost and what will you actually get?

“I just wanted a simple Will.”

Yes, maybe, if

You have been married only once;
You are still married;
You have children who were all born to you and your (only) wife or husband and are now grown up;
You have had no “past” and no other dependents;
All your assets are in your sole name, and none of them qualifies for any special tax treatment;
All your assets are in this country;
You regard this country as your home;
You have no prospect of inheriting;
You have nothing that needs special care after your death or special disposal;
You have no children or grandchildren with special needs; and
You are not self-employed, with a business to wind up and sell or to pass on to your family.

Even a person who leads a “fairly normal” life may in fact benefit from some advice, as well as the actual Will document.

“I have been quoted £29.50, no VAT.”
That represents about five hours’ work at the National Minimum Wage. Would that buy the level of skill you need? How long does it actually take to prepare a Will, anyway?

1.       Taking instructions: to do a reasonable job, finding out about the family, the assets and agreeing the basis of doing the work, allow an absolute minimum of half an hour and realistically three times that. The elderly may need time to think. There may be issues of mental capacity, so the instruction-taker needs legal skills.

2.       Drafting the Will: a fast worker, well-trained, with good office equipment, should do this in half an hour. Allow longer if the Will is to contain special trust clauses.

3.       “Presenting” the Will: a budget service will probably just send you the final copy, with details of how to sign. If you want an explanation from the person who drafted the Will of its terms, that will take more time – half an hour to write a letter, longer perhaps for a discussion by telephone or in a meeting.

4.       Revising the draft: if the first draft was totally correct, fine. It not, extra time is now needed, say ½ hour at least.

5.       Signing: Do you know the formalities? Do you have a couple of witnesses ready? If not, or if you prefer the privacy of not dealing with nosy neighbours, there will be extra time involved here.

6.       Recording and storing: Should you have a spare copy? Do you have copying facilities at home? Many people do. Will you supply a copy to your executors? Do you have somewhere to keep the original safe? Dealing with this takes time, unless you do it all yourself.

So, in terms of time, what does that all come to?

Try three scenarios, budget, mid-price and premium style services (time estimates shown in minutes):

	Budget	Mid-price	Premium
Instructions	30	45	90
Drafting	30	30	60
Presenting	N/A	30	30+
Revising	N/A	30	45
Signing	15	15	15
Recording etc	N/A*	15	15
	1 ½ hrs	2 ¾ hrs	4 ¼ hours

* Storage often provided, with the Budget service, for an extra annual fee. With the mid-price and premium service there is often no charge.

So what would you expect, realistically?

Budget Will

At £29.50 for the Will itself, you would expect:

strong “cross-selling” pressure of other insurance-based products, such as funeral plans, probate fee plans;
hidden extra charges;
very high charges for “storing” the Will;
absolute minimum time spent on the actual drafting; and
no “come back” against the will drafter if there were problems later, for example if there was no proper insurance to cover professional negligence or to cover loss of the document though fire, flood or (perhaps unlikely) theft.

Mid-price Will

This is what most people actually need. It is a good, uncomplicated service. If the work takes nearly 3 hours, what hourly rate might you expect to pay? For example, in the provinces:

       a good financial adviser might charge about £200 *
       a music teacher about £30
       a hairdresser about £27.50
       a solicitor £150 - £175 (plus VAT)

That suggests that a fair fee for a will might be around £450 plus VAT. There will probably be a considerable saving on preparing two wills for the same family. * See for example Towry Law: “Wealth Adviser” £150-£250 per hour.

Premium quality Will

Everyone deserves a premium service, but people who have led “interesting” lives actually need it, almost regardless of how much money they have. Wealthy people – say couples whose assets exceed £600,000 – need advice to control tax issues. We now know that, for the foreseeable future, the IHT threshold is not going to rise. That means, in real terms, that IHT will hit harder as inflation increases “paper” values.

Tax advisers command higher fees than general practitioners. Allowing for the extra time involved, that suggests fees of £800 plus VAT and upwards. There will probably be a saving for two Wills for the same family.

But can I get it for less?

Of course you can. Go online. Put some effort into it. Do more of the work yourself. Train to be a will-writer or tax consultant. Alternatively, allow yourself to be drawn into ancillary sales where the profit helps to support a loss-making Will, and where you know that very little money is being directed to getting the document right.

The choice is yours.

We don’t do budget Wills, by the way, but for anything better we provide top-quality lawyers, leaders in their field, who offer exceptional value. Others come to us for professional help: we train the next generation of professionals.