DIY expenses and balance sheet for a Will

I've done two simple uncontentious ones, and I used Excel. I was joint executor with my brother's solicitor for a slightly more complicated one which involved trusts for minors. In that case, the solicitor did the main accounts although he was happy for me to do all the leg-work, and once the trusts were set up he stood down to be replaced by another family member to minimise the costs to the estate.

But the only expenses that I "claimed" were things which I actually paid out, like death certificates and house insurance. You need to be more explicit and would probably be better posting in uk.legal.moderated.

The Will is basic with no issues and I have done a balance sheet on excel and I have detailed all funeral expenses. I am just unsure how I get my personal expenses logged on it.

Example. value of estate £19000 Less funeral costs etc of £4000 Balance of estate £15000 = (x 3 beneficeries) £5000 each

One of the beneficeries is also executor who has £120 of expenses.

My thinking is (if correct) if I include the £120 as part of the funeral costs/expenses then Ithe executor is in effect paying a third of their own expenses when the net balance is split 3 ways.

Any thoughts on where or how this expense is deducted from the balance sheet.

ss brought next idea :

Yes, I was an Executor. Keep a careful account of everything which has to be paid out, every reasonable expense, all of the outstanding bills which have to be paid out - then finally tot up and itemise every penny which which comes in. List both sets of items on a sheet, with a final valuation at the end.

Keep a copy of each bill and each receipt for expenses.

If it is not particularly complicated, you could do the above manually in a simple Word document, using a calculator.

Best if you can, to have someone completely independent to double check everything tallies and your calculation, to avoid any later arguments. Wills often cause family arguments and major disputes, so get it right.

I just added a category called "Executors expenses" to the estate balance sheet and started a log of what I'd spent and on what, keeping receipts where relevant. Although quite a lot of it was mileage charges (I got the 'pence per mile' cost from the RAC web site), in which case I logged where and when I drove and for what reason.

No-one asked to see any of it. :o(

The expenses will come out of the estate before the remainder of it can be distributed as legacies.

If the expenses are owed to someone who is also a recipient of a legacy, then yes in effect the process of paying the expenses will reduce the residual value of the estate, and reduce what is available for distribution to the heirs. However it does mean that the impact affects all the heirs and not just one.

But given the estate has a fixed value, any payments from it will have knock on effects elsewhere.

value of estate ?19000 less expenses, including executor expenses.

That's right. After all, if you were the only beneficiary, you'd pay all your own expenses, if there were two, half each and so on.

If you paid a solicitor to do it, the split would be even too, except of course they'd charge for their time as well as expenses.

Cheers

And it would be considerably higher than what I would save.

Yes thats all been done and all mileage timed dated and costed. The balance sheet has been done on excel, its a simple estate but just not sure where I was to put the personal expenses.

Already had WW3 over the damn thing which was expected but everything tidy this end, and its only a small financial gain!

In my case I had been named as one of three executors, the other two being solicitors, with three main beneficiaries, me one of the three. The legal fees could have taken great lumps out of the what had been left.

So I got everyone to agree to asking the solicitors to renounce their involvement (and fat fee). The law societies recommendation had just been changed to - unless there was a very good reason for them to retain their involvement (other than the fat fee), when asked they must renounce and they did.

I then spent 12 months settling everything, gaining Probate, paying off the bills etc. it was fairly straight forward and was ready to be settled after 5 months, that is until the DWP became involved, investigating and leaking their cut. That held up paying out for a further 7 months. The DWP keep a close eye on deaths and on Probate values submitted, so it is unsafe to pay anything out until around a couple of months after Probate is granted, on chance that the DWP try to claw money back.

I simply agreed a flat fee to be paid to me, for all the time and effort involved in doing the work, of a donation of £500 by the other two benefactors. I could have allowed the solicitors to handle it and they would have been entitled to up to 25% of the value of the estate, which would have wiped out all or most of the cash assets and the two got nothing. So for the grand sum of £1000, they got a bargain.

I was left the entire property, the other two the financial assets.

The extra 7 months delay, caused the cash benefactors to blame me for the delays and it got to the point of them threatening physical violence against me in their demands. At one stage of the proceedings, legal enquiries had been made to see if they might be able to dispute the Will and claim the property as well as the cash - judging by what one of the two had let slip in a ranting phone call.

I wondered how you pulled that stunt off. Thanks for explaining.

Harry Bloomfield grunted in news:p9347d$rl$ snipped-for-privacy@dont-email.me:

Seems a very reasonable way forward to me and I don't doubt the other beneficiaries agree - that said, as a non-professional executor you aren't actually allowed to charge expenses for your time in doing the job (which I think is what you're saying happened). If the others had got stroppy they could have demanded a full breakdown of the ?1000, and declined to cover anything not a genuine out-of-pocket expense.

David

I believe this is ok providing it is agreed and included in the Will. We didnt have this but will claim mileage/postage etc. In some respects we are £s in as one beneficiary had POA and had already taken steps to access the deceaseds funds, the deceased who was living at the time didnt know about this but we managed to block it. Then when he passed away that same beneficiary gloatingly told all she would be at the bank the next day within 3 minutes of her dad dying........only to be told there was a new Will and said beneficiary was not the executor! It was a game of cat & mouse and we kept the ace cards up our sleeve until the last minute. Said beneficiary blew a gasket and was chucking stuff across her dads dead body (died 3 minutes previously) it was unreal wish it had been videoed, I would have put it on utube.

That was also my understanding that non-professionals can't claim "time" expenses. ISTR hearing of one will where the executor was not a significant beneficiary, except that there was a lump sum in the will as an appropriate compensation for anticipated time spent.

Certainly in my case I would have felt cheeky claiming things like phone calls, postage, mileage and parking (even though I don't think the other beneficiaries would have complained).

Quote.......

.........."Even though Executors are usually responsible for a substantial amount of work during the administering of the Estate, they are not entitled to be paid for it unless it allows for it in the Will. Professionals such as lawyers, banks and accountants do charge fees for their work if they are appointed as Executors."...........

However, this wouldn't preclude "amateur" executors being re-imbursed for necessary expenses.

Absolutely.

You shouldn't end up out of pocket in any way for administering the estate.

Lobster explained :

They refused to provide any help at all, just greed and demands to get paid. I invited them round several times to review the progress and the ever increasing stack of paperwork it involved, plus the causes of the delay in paying out - again they were not interested. They did become interested, when I made it clear that the solicitors could claim all of their cash, as fees - which was how I got them to agree to my dealing with things alone.

Then came accusations that I was mis-handling it all, stealing the cash, they would have been better not agreeing to the solicitors renouncing their involvement. I wasn't of course, it was entirely above board, fully documented and witnessed by an independent person, but it didn't stop the threats and accusations they were making.

In the end, because of the mass of extra stress they had caused me, on top of the stress of dealing with everything, I invited them to make a donation to me - in view of the solicitors fees I had avoided. The fees would have all come out of their cash anyway, I neither gained nor lost in doing the work myself.

It happens that ss formulated :

I didn't make a separate charge for any of those things. I expended many hours of my time on it, lots of trips to sort various things out, lots of phone calls, lots letters and a great deal of time spent researching how to sort things out.