Wills and executors

[Adrian]

[Huge]

No. IHT and Income Tax are very different.

Indeed. Because the OP and partner were not married, nor were they in a Civil Partnership, the Double Nil Rate Band rule will not apply.

[5 lines snipped]

They don't *need* to be sold. They can be valued - the IHT office prefer "quarter-up" valuations. See here;

This is not true. And indeed, the estate may have overpaid tax, since the deceased's tax free allowance still applies for the tax year in which they died, but their income for that year is reduced.

You might like to know that the IHT office is *very* behind. We have been waiting 13 weeks for confirmation of the IHT calculation on my M-I-L's estate.

[GB]

They can really only be removed if they act incompetently, which they probably won't. They can argue that their client was your late partner, not the beneficiaries, and they are just carrying out your late partner's wishes in acting as executor. It's a pretty unassailable position.

Your position is slightly stronger, because you are named as a co-executor. I think you should just negotiate that you will do a lot of the spade-work and that they will charge on a time-cost basis, rather than some percentage.

[Huge]

Completely irrelevant. Investments can be included in the estate, valued for IHT and inherited according to the will without ever having to be sold.

[Huge]

Precisely.

[Huge]

The moment you tell them the account-holder is dead, they will freeze the account.

[Huge]

Idiot.

[stuart noble]

Except that partners normally own their home jointly and have joint bank accounts

[Tim Watts]

On an aside, if you were executing a will for someone who managed their affairs very privately, how on earth would you know or find out such information?

Accepted that if you went through the last 7 years of bank statements (assuming the bank could reproduce these) you might spot odd large sums

- but even then, how to verify it was a gift or not?

If the person happened to keep a lot of cash (taken out over along period of time) or gold about their property and gifted those, I assume verifying that would be near impossible?

Just how far is an executor suppose to go?

[Tim Watts]

I did check on what rights a common law wife or husband may have - and according to Wikipedia, in England and Wales, pretty much none as far as I can see.

[stuart noble]

Normal families leave stuff to their spouses/offspring. If you're part of a dysfunctional family then probably you need complicated documentation. Jarndyce vs Jarndyce

[stuart noble]

Unless it's a joint account, which I'm optimistically assuming most "partners" would have

[Adrian]

Your definition of "normal" is _incredibly_ narrow.

[Mike Barnes]

Not legally, no. But there are taxation and practical reasons why it's advantageous to be married even with a valid will.

Note that a valid will automatically becomes invalid when you get married. A new will is advisable.

[charles]

we do have - for the "holiday & house maintenance fund". Otherwise we each have our own.

[Adrian]

SWMBO and I have been together nearly 20 years, and lived together for the vast majority of that time. We aren't married. We do have a joint account, but we also have accounts and investments in sole names.

If she died intestate, then every single penny, every single possession that wasn't explicitly in joint names would go to the crown.

For me, it would go to my parents. If they predeceased me, anything not in our joint names would go to my brother - who I barely have any contact with. If he predeceased me, it would go to uncles who my parents are barely in contact with. If they predeceased me, it would go to the crown.

Or... we could make a nice simple will.

[ratsack]

They didn?t do either.

[ratsack]

Harry is not her spouse and so would get nothing.

She didn?t want to leave the house to the offspring, she wanted Harry to get it.

If you're part

And if you aren't married, and want the other individual to get anything at all, you need a will to achieve that result. And the will is not complicated at all, Harry gets the house, the grandkids get the cash divided between them, her daughter gets the jewellery.

[Huge]

If you *choose* to start dealing with the intestacy process on top of everything else on the death of a family member, plus dealing with all the financial & legal institutions who will want to see a will, then you're an idiot.

I would strongly suspect that you've never acted as an executor.

[ratsack]

She didn?t.