Andrews added that with all the political parties fighting for votes, everyone will be looking at how the government will deal with other controversial proposals.
“Regardless of what happens now, the current Conservative Government have drawn a line in the sand and have, to some extent, shown their hand – whilst these proposals have been shelved for now it will be interesting to see if the changes to probate fees are revisited after the election”, he said.
John Gould, senior partner at law firm Russell-Cooke, who has been advising the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (Step) in relation to the legality of the government’s proposed increases in probate fees, said:
“For most estates a grant of probate is required and the fee is unavoidable. A key question was whether the charge was legally a fee or actually taxation. Our advice was that the charge was in substance taxation. This mattered because the government was proposing to introduce the fee without legislation.
“It is a long established constitutional principle that taxation can only be imposed by an Act of Parliament. The increased fee was expected to raise more than £300m each year from estates. We have been providing legal support to Step in its representations opposing the proposals.
“As has now been widely reported, the government, in the context of the general election, appears to have taken account of the legal arguments and has now announced that the increased fees proposal will not (at least for the present) proceed.”
