Will drafting

My wife is a US national who lives with me in the UK on a spousal visa. She has a property in the USA and some US investments.   She is not wealthy and her property is not high value.

We want to prepare a will for her to cover her US and UK assets. I received a quote from a London solicitor  for £5,000 which is way more than I was expecting given that all she wants to do is leave everything to me (no children involved).

We would welcome any recommendations for a suitably qualified solicitor.

I posted this in the "Taxes" forum but realise  that this is the better place, so apologies for the double-post.

That fee sounds way too expensive to me. For her US investments she needs to make sure that she has named beneficiaries as I believe they supersede any persons named in a will.

That fee sounds way too expensive to me. For her US investments she needs to make sure that she has named beneficiaries as I believe they supersede any persons named in a will.

Thanks for the reply. I have approached a few more solicitors so will report back if I find someone suitable. I'll check with her about her investments.

I would be interested to hear what you ended up doing. I am currently looking at the same. We aren't old and have no complicated arrangements. If there wasn't the additional complication of overseas assets I would likely go ahead and buy a standard template or use the coop or a local lawyer for a straightforward document. But it seems we'd need to find someone with specialist knowledge and that will likely be expensive.
On potential easy options, I found the following website and wondered if anyone had heard of them or used them. newcomer link: https://www.legalwills.co.uk/myexpatwill [nonactive]

Hi

We actually have a meeting with a solicitor on Monday. I'm a solicitor myself and I drafted my own will before I married my wife who is a US citizen. It is because she has overseas assets (a property and savings) that I felt specialist advice was needed.

We were told that to prepare wills for both of us the fees would be in the region of £3,000 plus VAT. If advice was needed from a US lawyer then this would affect the time and costs. 

Another solicitor said that their wills for a couple started at £2,500 plus VAT and for a single person they would be more like 2,000 plus VAT.

II'll post here once we have seen him.