A house in Galleywood or Springfield bought in the 1980s is now, for many Chelmsford families, worth enough on its own to raise inheritance tax questions their parents never faced. Add a pension, some savings and perhaps a second marriage, and a will stops being a formality. Will solicitors in Chelmsford spend much of their time on these households: providing for a new spouse without disinheriting the children of a first marriage, using the allowances that pass a home to descendants, and deciding whether a trust is worth the trouble.
The intestacy rules are an unforgiving substitute. They give nothing to an unmarried partner, however long the relationship, nothing to stepchildren, and they can leave a surviving spouse sharing the estate with adult children in ways nobody intended. Lasting powers of attorney, one for property and finance and one for health and welfare, are the other documents every adult in Chelmsford should consider; without them a family facing dementia has to apply to the Court of Protection, a slower and much costlier route.
When someone dies, the same solicitors administer the estate: valuing it, reporting to HMRC, obtaining the grant and paying out to the beneficiaries. A let property, a farm in the villages around Writtle or a share in a family business makes an estate complicated, and executors answer personally for mistakes. Disputes between beneficiaries, and claims by those left out, are usually settled by negotiation, but a solicitor is needed either way.
Expect a fixed price for single and mirror wills and for lasting powers of attorney; probate may be priced as a fixed sum, by the hour or as a share of the estate's value, and the quote should say which.
The will and probate solicitors serving Chelmsford are listed below, verified firms first. Background reading: wills, trusts and probate explained, the guides to the cost of a will and the cost of probate, lasting powers of attorney and the general will solicitors page.
