Yes, I know you’re not MY attorney, and I don’t want you to be. I am asking if there is some kind of standard – or convention – I can use to account for some of my time as the administrator of my uncle’s estate.
He died in June of 2008, and since then I’ve sent or received about 150 emails and snail mail, to the lawyers, family members, creditors and other interested parties. Is it reasonable to estimate a half-hour per email and charge 60ish hours for the lot? I think that is a reasonable estimate of the total hours I’ve put in to correspondence, but I doutful I can assign a specific amount to time to each separate email.
FYI, there are several specific pieces of correspondence that I am planning to charge separately for, like three letters I’ve sent to the heirs in that time period that served as reports on the progress of the estate business.
Well, generally lawyers bill noncontingent matters one of 2 ways - either a set fee for the action, or an hourly fee. If charging hourly, they generally itemize each activity by portions of an hour. Many get away with using quarter hour increments (which can IMO be a license to steal.) Others use tenths of an hour. You could itemize .1 hour for each e-mail/letter received, and .25 hour for each e-mail/letter sent. But I would provide some such type of itemization. My initial impression on seeing your list (150 communications, .5 hour each, total 60 hours) was to think “Hmm, those numbers don’t add up!” I mean, 150 X .5 = 75 hours, not 60.
You have a fiduciary duty to the estate to charge a fair rate for your services (imprecisely phrased, blah blah. . .) What you propose could or could not seem fair. Also depends on who if anyone is likely to contest what you charge, as well as the hourly rate you expect to ask.
In short, if you think it is fair to say most of the e-mails and letters took an average of 30 minutes, then sure, indicate and bill as much. And single out the few that you recall took substantially longer. But provide some explanation that will at least appear to make sense, instead of letting someone think you just pulled numbers out of your hat.
Providing detail can cut both ways. On one hand, it can make it look as tho you really did a lot, and really deserve your fee. OTOH, it gives all the more basis for someone wanting to be a jerk to argue each little point. A judgment call on your part and depends on how argumentative you think the heirs are likely to be.
Just curious - how do you intend to come up with your requested rate?
I plan to charge 20 bucks per hour, which is a bit less than I earn on my day job. I can document my normal hourly pay, which would at least show I’m not trying to gouge the estate by charging far more for my work than my normal pay.
I’m thinking that if there is a norm of charging by the quarter hour, it will probably cause less friction to reduce the time estimate. Even cutting the number in half still leaves the total estimate over $3k. The reason the number isn’t exact is that we’re not quite done yet. As of yesterday there were 121 emails, plus a couple of dozen paper letters (which I haven’t yet counted). I expect to exchange several over how to structure the final letter to the family.
Here’s the thing. I don’t really want the money – what I want is a Rolex watch my uncle owned at death. It’s not especially valuable – it wasn’t in working condition, and it was missing the band when we retreived it. The estate paid $650 to overhaul and repair it, which I thought would be necessary to resell it. And then I had it appraised – it appraised to $1500. A litle Rolex trivia here – about half the value is in the band, as the dealer told me replacing the band with a genuine Rolex one would cost $4000. I said no thanks.
I’ve been told by a cousin that one of my uncles – his dad – is likely to object to me keeping the watch. Despite the reality that it looked like a watch worn by a fry cook who never took it off or cleaned it, he will remember it as a diamond encrusted watch suitable for the King of England, and be convinced I’m trying to rip him off. Apparently he believes this about every human being he does business with, so it’s kind of unavoidable.
So what my lawyer is suggesting, and I agree with, is to make the family an offer they can’t refuse. “Sign this acknowledement now, and get the remainder of the estate funds within the month (this would be about 20 grand each for my uncle’s brothers). If you have objections to Boyo Jim keeping the watch as his administrator’s fee, Boyo Jom is willing to accept the cash value of his work, and will sell the watch. This is likely to result in a reduced payout to you, depennding on what the ultimate sale price is. If you object to both of these options, we can settle it before a judge, but everyone’s payout will be delayed significantly while this is worked out.”
Of course, he will put it far more artfully than I can.
The firm I work at now charges by the quarter hour, but I’ve worked at firms that charged by tenths and even hundredths of an hour. The latter doesn’t seem to be standard, however.
I agree with Dinsdale’s example of putting down less time for incoming emails/letters than outgoing ones. If I were to look at my timesheets, they would show that it takes me less time to read an email/letter than to compose one.
It would seem odd to me to see a timesheet where it took half an hour to read an incoming letter/email. Of course, that depends on the length of the letter/email. If you read something and it required some action on your part (research, a phone call), I’d add that to your itemization.
I am not your lawyer, this isn’t legal advice, et cetera, et cetera.
It’s a good few years ago, and in the U.K. to boot, but I took advice about this and was told that I should charge my normal hourly rate (£25/hr at the time).