Wills and executors

I really suggest you stop giving legal advice. Choosing to be intestate, especially when you aren't married or in a civil partnership with your partner is negligence, verging on cruely to the survivor. Not only have you got to get over the death of your partner, but months of legal pain will ensue.

Reply to
Huge
Loading thread data ...

Yep. That's one of the reasons civil partnerships were introduced. It wasn't just for the gays.

Reply to
Huge

You couldn't.

I can tell you from experience that the burden of proof is firmly on you. It's 40% unless you can prove otherwise. The last one I dealt with ground to a halt because the bank could not provide cheque stubs, so the payee couldn't be identified. Jolly frustrating, but it's no doubt easier these days.

Anything going out of the account in the previous 7 years will be deemed a gift by default. Bastards

Just the 7 years.

I have a mate whose stamp collection is worth more than his house. No audit trail there. Smart guy

Reply to
stuart noble

Condolences.

The only advantage of having a solicitor do it is if they are on a fixed fee and you feel too distracted to deal with all the paperwork.

Another option is to have the solicitors do the tedious paperwork of the application and then collect in money yourself once probate is granted and the letters of administration are issued.

Unless you are on an Apple you will probably need to download a decent PDF tool - the free version of PDF-Xchange seems to work OK with the official probate forms. Several others I tried could not compute the subtotals as they seem to have used some non-standard Adobe extensions.

If you bought the full version of AdobePDF then you might well find the solicitors were a bargain by comparison (and it is pushing it to do everything to completion inside the free evaluation period). YMMV

Reply to
Martin Brown

Anything that cannot be verified to be in procurement of goods or settlement of a bill I presume?

I don't think it can be quite that retarded. Otherwise someone who withdrew £50-100 each week to buy groceries would be deemed to have "gifted" £18k-36k which would have a non trivial impact.

Having dealt with probate, I cannot recall HMRC wanting to see the last

7 years of bank transactions.

I meant in terms of effort?

I am sorely tempted to start hiding gold kruggerands all over the place...

Reply to
Tim Watts

That has been my experience, yes.

Reply to
The Natural Philosopher

Indeed.

The bank should lock down all of her accounts immediately that you notify them of her death. This may result in some fraction of the last month of pension payment bouncing and letters from her pension provider.

Make a list of everyone who needs to be notified and work down it.

That might be a sensible way to proceed unless you are very comfortable with administering copious tedious paperwork. It is relatively easy to collect up the money once probate has been granted - amenable to DIY.

The probate forms aren't intended to be deliberately opaque and obtuse but they are by no means an easy read. Written by lawyers for lawyers...

Reply to
Martin Brown

Not that cheque stubs are any kind of guarantee of anything anyway.

Ooh, look, an Amazon payment. I wonder what it was or who it was delivered to...

Reply to
Adrian

Not insured then?

Reply to
dennis

Harry

  • 1 on both counts.

For straightforward wills, being an executor is pretty easy. You need professional help if there are trusts for minors, and a financial advisor (rather than a solicitor) will probably recoup their cost if there is any significant tax to pay.

I was a joint executor with my brother's solicitor when he died, and they were totally professional: they were happy to minimise the costs by letting me do the donkey work, and once the necessary trusts for minors had been sorted, they stood down with another family member as trustee.

YMMV.

Steve

Reply to
newshound

+1
Reply to
newshound

Intestacy is no more complicated than a will, and is at least unambiguous. Either way probate is issued and that is all anyone needs as authority to release funds. Your strong suspicions are unfounded. You don't get to my advanced age without a few people dying.

Reply to
stuart noble

Even if you can show that you own the house jointly it still leaves you homeless if the beneficiaries want their half of the house. Also half the cash in the bank account and half of anything else jointly owned.

Reply to
dennis

Huge has brought this to us :

WRONG!

Or at least according to my bank which is the same bank in which her accounts were held. I informed the bank on Monday, in person, with the death cert and will in hand.

Their manager seemed to say initially - all transactions would be stopped dead, but then later during the interview said - all DD's would continue to be honoured, as normal. I could also top it up if necessary, but no other money could be drawn out against the accounts, not even by me. That status will remain, until I decided to change it.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

Depends on if the house is tenants-in-common or joint-tenants.

Reply to
Adrian

Oh, indeed it is unambiguous. Even if you know it's not what the deceased wanted, it is unambiguous. George Osborne has a higher claim than an unmarried partner.

Reply to
Adrian

There is nothing to it, and yes I have done it. The rules are straight forward and you can't change them without a will of some sort.

Reply to
dennis

They obviously tend to lock on to the larger amounts in round figures. Spending £500 a week on grub might raise eyebrows.

I had to send the whole lot off, but left out 2 months. They got all excited but the missing statements contained nothing significant. I was just testing them

Most of the effort will be your attempts to reduce the value of the estate

Or antiques. HMRC are only after the low hanging fruit

Reply to
stuart noble

No idea. Maybe it's all stored in Hatton Garden

Reply to
stuart noble

No minors involved, though they were when the will was written. Her grandkids, now have kids of their own.

Reply to
Harry Bloomfield

HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.