Could you please take a few minutes to read through your will to check that you do not have the following [or similar] wording included:
''All the legal matters in
connection with my will shall be handled by [name of lawyer]’’ and/or ''I appoint [name of lawyer] to handle probate on my behalf''
Also, unless there is no-one else possible, your lawyer should definitely not be appointed as your Executor, which was in the past, a common request by the lawyers.
This prevents you effectively negotiating a fair fee as you cannot get outside quotes and are stuck with the lawyers fee demands
In a recent example which has come to light, the will/codicil pre-dates a European law of 2018. Pre 2018,
a Cyprus lawyer could charge 15% or more of a deceased’s estate to act, so if, say, a property was in
joint names, valued at €400,000, then half is €200,000 x 15%, ie €30,000.
The minimum the lawyer could take was 9% but that would still
be €18,000.
In
2015 the EU issued legal action against Cyprus against this illegal practice
(under EU Law) of minimum fees.
Some background to the Hearing:
The
Hearing was eventually listed before the EU Court on 20th June
2018.
To avoid attendance at the Hearing an
extraordinary meeting was held on the 19th June
2018 at which the Cyprus Bar Association (CBA) decided to abolish the Minimum
Fee Regulations immediately in their entirety, which included fees relating to
the provision of out-of-court-cases.
In addition, Cyprus amended Article 24(1)(k) of
the Advocates’ Law that empowered the CBA to “fix lawyers fees for
out-of-court cases”.
So from June 2018 only, holding out until the
last possible day, the CBA agreed to abandon fixed fees replacing them
with "observing the principles of free and fair competition,
.. in relation to lawyer’s remuneration for out-of-court cases“.
Thus Lawyers have to now charge a fair price
for the work, based on work actually done, not
the Estates value.
As
a rule, the correct value of probate work is in the region of €3,000 upwards, depending on complexity.
If in doubt or unsure as to what the wording in your own will means, please get legal advice from an alternative lawyer to the one who drafted the will
SEE: Lawyers minimum fees in the bin - Cyprus Property News - https://news.cyprus-property-buyers.com/2018/09/17/lawyers-minimum-fees-bin/id=00154704
