MPs are calling for the threshold for when a probate fee becomes payable to be quadrupled from £5,000 to £20,000.
In June, the government announced probate application fees will rise to £526, an increase of 75% on the £300 fee set in 2024.
Andy Slaughter, MP and chair of the Justice Committee, wrote to Sarah Sackman, the Minister of State for Courts and Legal Services (pictured), highlighting concerns that the government has raised the cost of probate application fees by £226 without reviewing the threshold at which a probate fee becomes payable.
Mr Slaughter raises concerns that “once the application fee is increased to £526, estates worth just over the £5,000 threshold will be required to pay an application fee that represents a significant proportion of the estate’s total value, potentially greater than 10%.”
He adds that the threshold of £5,000 for probate fees to be payable was set in 1999 at a time when the fee for a grant of probate application stood at £50.
“Recent data shows that only 5.2% of applications are now below this £5,000 threshold, so the vast majority of estates must pay the fee,” Mr Slaughter writes.
He adds: “In our view, if the probate application fee is to be increased by this amount, the threshold for non-payment should be increased significantly. We suggest a reasonable threshold could be £20,000. This would mean that even for estates with values just above the threshold, the proportion of the total estate value they would be required to pay would be more tolerable.”
On behalf of the Justice Committee, Mr Slaughter requests that the Ministry of Justice “explains the underlying calculation that produced the estimated cost of £526 for processing a probate grant application.”
He added that: “The proposed fee has been set at only £10 below the cost of providing the service. Given the narrow margin between the fee and the underlying cost, it is important that the Committee is able to scrutinise the basis of that cost estimate.”
