Under Section 71(3) of the Solicitors Act 1974, where a trustee, executor or administrator is liable to pay a solicitor’s bill, any person with an interest in the property out of which it may be paid can apply to the court for an assessment of it. A High Court case in which two of the beneficiaries of a deceased man’s estate were ordered to pay the costs of such an assessment illustrates the importance of conducting such applications reasonably.
The man had died in 2020. The beneficiaries were also the executors of his estate. His daughter, who was not a beneficiary, challenged his will, contending that he had died intestate. The beneficiaries were unable to administer the estate until the probate claim had been resolved, and applied for the appointment of a solicitor as administrator. The Court made an order appointing the solicitor for the duration of the probate proceedings and authorising him to charge reasonable professional fees in respect of the administration of the estate. His firm undertook the required legal work.
The beneficiaries took issue with the solicitor’s costs and the performance of his duties and, after the probate claim was settled, obtained an assessment of the costs under Section 71(3). The Court noted that the assessment had taken nine days of court time, whereas it would normally expect such an assessment to be completed within two days. This was largely because the beneficiaries had produced numerous pages of points of dispute, accusing the solicitor of failing to protect the man’s estate and characterising a generally unremarkable body of costs as extraordinary in amount, the underlying theme being that the solicitor and his firm had systematically overcharged.
The Court had assessed the bill at nearly 88 per cent of the amount originally billed, and had found nothing to justify the serious allegations levelled against the solicitor and his firm. The beneficiaries had made no attempt at negotiation and had rejected three attempts by the solicitor to settle the dispute for less than the amount assessed by the Court. Having found the beneficiaries’ conduct in relation to the assessment to be ‘unreasonable to a high degree’, the Court had ordered them to pay the costs of the assessment, which it assessed at £132,400 plus VAT, on the indemnity basis.
Considering the beneficiaries’ argument that the estate, rather than they, should bear those costs, the Court was unable to accept the proposition that they had pursued the assessment in their capacity as executors. Section 71(3) empowers the Court to make an order for assessment of a solicitor’s bill on the application of ‘any person interested in any property out of which the trustee, executor or administrator has paid, or is entitled to pay, the bill’. It does not allow for applications by trustees, executors or administrators themselves. The beneficiaries had made the application in their capacity as beneficiaries, and the costs fell to be borne by them as beneficiaries, not by the estate.
