Peterborough office
48 Broadway, Peterborough Cambridgeshire, PE1 1YW
01733 346 333 01733 562 338 enquiries@hegarty.co.ukStamford office
10 Ironmonger Street, Stamford Lincolnshire, PE9 1PL
01780 752 066 01780 762 774 enquiries@hegarty.co.ukOakham office
66 South Street, Oakham Rutland, LE15 6BQ
01572 757 565 01572 720 555 enquiries@hegarty.co.ukMarket Deeping office
27a Market Place, Market Deeping, PE6 8EA
01778 230 120 01778 230 129 enquiries@hegarty.co.ukThe choice of an Executor or Executors to administer your estate in accordance with your will is a very important decision. An executor could be a professional executor such as a solicitor or accountant or a trusted friend or family member.
It is important to appoint someone who you consider is trustworthy, will deal efficiently with paperwork and will act impartially to carry out your wishes.
There is no legal requirement to appoint a professional Executor such as a Solicitor, Accountant or Bank.
If you do not have complicated financial affairs and your will is straightforward and you do not consider there is any likelihood of a dispute regarding your will, then you may not consider it necessary to appoint a professional Executor.
In many straightforward cases a family member or friend may be considered suitable and able to carry out the task.
However, the office of an Executor can be an onerous task with the legal responsibilities and a risk of personal liability if the estate suffers loss as a consequence of the actions (or lack of action) of the Executors.
It is always possible for the Executor(s) appointed to instruct a professional person (such as a Solicitor) to act on their behalf to administer your estate. The professional person’s charges may be met out of the estate and the Executor(s) will be able to agree with the professional person the manner in which his charges will be calculated.
We do pride ourselves upon explaining all of the options so that you may make an informed decision as to who you should appoint to be your Executor(s).
There are, however, many instances where you may consider it appropriate to appoint a professional Executor. Some examples of those instances may be as follows:
Hegarty can act as Executors in appropriate cases when asked to do so and in that event we would charge for acting as Executor. However the charges only arise following your death.
We work to ensure our charges are fair and reasonable and they are calculated by reference to the time spent by the person carrying out the work at an hourly rate of charge. In the vast majority of cases we are able to provide at the outset an accurate estimate as to the likely charges.
As a matter of course when we prepare a Will where the Partners of the firm are to be appointed as Executors with a view to being totally transparent we provide an estimate as to our likely charges if we were to administer a similar estate at the time of preparing the Will.
