Margaret Selby, who died in 2022, had appointed her friend Patricia Malcher as executor of her will, and the directors of Surrey law firm Quantick Daley Solicitors (a trading division of QLaw Legal Services) as professional executors. After she died, Neil Quantick, director of QLaw, undertook the role and subsequently billed for more than £53,000 in 2024. The beneficiaries of Ms Selby’s estate, Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, asked for the bills to be assessed.
Ruling in Royal Holloway and Bedford New College v QLaw Legal Services [2026] EWHC 2009 (SCCO), Costs Judge Leonard held the firm need not be paid as the will made no express provision for it.
He rejected the firm’s argument it had proper authorisation under the Trustee Act 2000 for charging as it had written in a letter to Ms Selby that ‘as professional executors we will charge’ and, when it began administering the estate, emailed its costs charging structure to the executor.
Costs Judge Leonard concluded: ‘At its highest the letter offers hearsay evidence to the effect that, on or about 19 December 2023, Ms Selby was willing to prepare a will which would permit professional executors to charge for their services.’
The judge referred to Shepherd & Co Solicitors v Brealey [2024] EWCA Civ 303, which ‘had striking factual similarities to this one’, where it was held a firm appointed executors could not bill in the absence of a charging clause.
‘Had Ms Selby conferred upon her executors a right to charge for their services she would have done so by making a provision to that effect in her will, and she did not.’
