Probate fees
The Law Society has welcomed the lapse of a planned increase in probate fees as a result of parliament being suspended. Fees would have risen from the fixed amounts of £215 (personal applications) or £155 (Solicitor applications), to a sliding scale of up to...
Probate registry office closure
HM Courts and Tribunals Service (HMCTS) has announced that the Probate Registry Office in Birmingham will be closing at the end of the month. This is the first announced closure with further closures expected across the country as the Probate Service attempts...
‘Cause if you like it, then you shoulda put a ring on it…
The rise of cohabiting couples has continued in the UK, with the numbers growing by 25% to 3.4 million families from 2008 to 2018. Cohabiting couples however still only represent 18 per cent of the UK's 19.1 million families. Marriages and civil partnerships...
Modern family structures and unintended consequences
When couples talk to me about making a Will, they often ask what would happen if they both died together in a car crash-who would inherit their assets if they didn’t have a Will. Answer-in the legal world, where the order of death is uncertain, the older...
Probate fees update
The proposed considerable increases in Probate Court fees have yet to materialise, despite concerns that these would be brought in on the 1st April 2019. With Parliamentary timetabling, the earliest these could be reviewed would be the start of the Autumn...
Probate registry delays
It has been widely reported in the press in recent months of the considerable backlog of work that the Probate Registries in England and Wales are facing. Whereas in previous years, a Grant of Representation often took 10 days to be issued from the outset of...
Gifts to charity
Giving money to charity in your Will is a lovely way to leave a positive legacy for the future. People leave: Cash sums Property A share, or the whole, of their estate. There can be tax advantages to leaving money to charity in your Will. Legacies left to UK...
What a ‘shippy’ takeaway
In the media there has been controversy over a “shipping company with no ships”, Seaborne Freight (UK) Limited, that has been awarded a £14 million government contract in readiness for Brexit. Ridicule has been heaped on the company in many publications because of the...
The important ‘all in the car together’ clause
A recent gift to the charity Oxfam has highlighted the importance of making a provision in your Will for the unlikely event that the whole family should die with you or before you. Richard Cousins was the head of Compass, a successful Catering company, and had an...
We are expanding
We are pleased to announce that we are expanding and will be opening our new Lichfield office at Ground Floor, New Media House, Lichfield, WS14 9DZ on Monday 22nd October. We have outgrown our offices at 168 Birmingham Road, which has been our home for the last 2...
Lasting powers of attorney refund fees update
We reported back in February that the Office of the Public Guardian would be making partial refunds to people who had paid to register their Lasting Powers of Attorney between the 1st April 2013 and the 31st March 2017. This was due to the Office of the Public...
Tamworth Wellbeing Cancer Support Centre Charity Golf Day 2018
On Wednesday 12th September 2018, Four Oaks Legal Services and Tamworth Wellbeing and Cancer Support Centre, held their inaugural charity golf day at Aston Wood Golf Club. Ten teams played the 18 hole course at Aston Wood, including a team made up of former football...