Will - change of solicitor/executor

[Jim’s girl]

Hello Beagles
I would welcome some advice please:

My parents made and lodged Wills with a solicitor local to them, naming the solicitors as executors along with my sister and me.

The solicitors in question are some 150 miles away from us in Mum’s home town but Mum has now moved into a Care home local to us.

My sister and I are keen to tie up all loose ends in the town that Mum lived in all her life (house sale etc) but we are wondering whether her Will has to remain lodged with the solicitors who drew it up and are executors to it.

In the event of mum’s death, we would much rather use a local solicitor to execute the will to avoid the long round trips for the many short meetings which we experienced when our father died. In particular, we drove for three hours each way one day in order to swear an oath for probate which took 15 minutes!

I suspect the answer will be no, unless Mum changes her will (she’s 92 and that isn’t going to happen) but we’re hopeful!

[Peridot]

Re: Will - change of solicitor/executor

Hi Jim's Girl,

Is your mum able to instruct someone to prepare a new Will? From your comment above I assume not. You were correct in that any changes to a Will have to be made by the will maker (the testator). If mum is not capable of instructing someone or making the changes herself, then I am afraid she is stuck with the Will as it is.

However, there are several factors that solicitors should be looking at when they are appointed as executors. They have a duty, as any executor does, to preserve the assets as far as possible, which in the case of a simple straightforward estate may not justify the cost of the solicitors dealing with the probate. If there are other executors appointed who are capable of dealing with the matter themselves then it may be appropriate for the solicitors to renounce their appointment to allow the other named executors to deal. They can't be forced to renounce but there is an argument that they should in a simple estate scenario.

As I mention there are a variety of factors the solicitors would need to consider, including but not limited to, the simplicity of the estate, what the value of the estate is and whether there are any complicated assets that need dealing with and whether there was a specific reason your mother requested they be appointed.

There is no reason why you would need to travel to the solicitors to sign any documents. Anything that requires signing or swearing can be sent to you for you to arrange the necessary signatures or where a swear is needed, to attend a local solicitor to swear the Oath. If the solicitors did not renounce their appointment then it would also be possible for the other appointed executors to have 'power reserved' to them. If that occurred then their signatures wouldn't be required in any event, but they would still be able to be involved if you wished to at a later point.

If post is used I would always suggest recorded delivery is used and it does of course slow the process down a bit waiting for documents to be delivered and returned but shouldn't delay matters that much.

Sorry it is never as straightforward as we hope unfortunately.

[Jim’s girl]

Re: Will - change of solicitor/executor

Thank you peridot.
Mum is able to change her will, we just don’t want to put her through the hassle. She is mentally very astute but at 92 it’s the last thing she needs to be worrying about!
We will stick with the solicitor that she has appointed as executor and when the time comes, the process of probate and winding up her not insubstantial estate will be done by post, all in good time!
I really appreciate your help, many thanks.