Error ridden probate application and exorbitant fees in the five figures for an incomplete job. Engaged Rothera in April 2022 to probate an estate.The probate only came through in August 2023. Provided them all the information they had requested promptly.. Months later, after a lack of communication or progress on the application, made international call after call and emailed them to be constantly told that the lawyer would be in the office after four weeks, he was on vacation, he had a funeral to attend. When I insisted on knowing the cause for the delay, Rotheras showed no inclination to resolve the issue that was holding up the probate. Hence, I decided to work with the bank, spending hours of my time to resolve the issue and essentially take care of what Rothera were being paid for. Months later, after further delays, Rotheras sent me the application to sign, which to my dismay had been created incorrectly. On the application, Rothera had shown us as being domiciled in the UK. The very purpose of going through a lawyer was to prove that we were not domiciled in the UK and therefore IHT did not apply to our application.What was Rothera’s reaction to this huge error? Indifference. I was also asked by Rothera to prove from a local lawyer that we were domiciled outside the UK and that I had the right locally to inherit the estate. I had to spend hours researching on my own what documents would be suitable. No help from Rotheras, yet, as soon as I provided the documents they came back to me saying they would engage an expert for a fee and see what documents were needed. They had not been bothered to check this crucial information before asking me to pay the local lawyer and obtain the documents. Needless to say I had to pay the local lawyer again for another set of documents. The pension company informed me that they did not hear from Rotheras for months, hence the funds have been converted into a Bear account and I will now have to spend endless hours trying to resolve this issue on my own. Rotheras found selling certain stocks to be complicated, so that too was handed over to me to take care of. Rothera also asked me to take care of transferring the property titles to my name as they said they were too busy. Rotheras have charged unjustified fees in the five figures for doing the clerical task of writing to banks to obtain date of death values, of submitting the application (major error spotted by me thankfully) and writing to the companies asking them to deposit funds into the Rothera account. When I expressed my dissatisfaction at the fees they were charging for an error-ridden, incompetent and incomplete process, three of the partners got involved trying to justify the high fees they were charging me. Yet, none of the partners had been available to look at the delays, the error on the application or the fact that I was being pressured to handle and resolve the work that they did not want to do because it involved an extra step or two and what they had been engaged and paid to do. Why go with them when you can have any other competent lawyer to assist you? Save yourself the stress, extra work, and expense and go with a more competent lawyer’s firm.