What happens to equities etc on death of owner?

ukmaggie45

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but seeing as it concerns stocks and shares and bonds thought I would try here first.

My Father died in July 2007, leaving various equities, and something that I think may be some kind of tax wrapper (F&C Investments) as well as some bonds. He left everything to my Mother, who died about 6 and 1/2 weeks later in September, nothing was transferred to her name. She had some shares herself, as well as more bonds.

Probate granted on Father's will in Feb this year, and Mother's end of July.

We are wondering what should have been done with these investments. A second solicitor we have spoken to (the first was named executor along with my husband in both wills) said something about they should have been registered with Computershare so that dividends could be held until shares were transferred or sold when probate granted.

What has actually happened is that we are still getting dividend cheques and tax vouchers arriving at my parents' flat, which is currently up for sale. Including a cheque for £18,000 that we found on the doormat when visiting a couple of months ago (one of Mother's share holdings the company was taken over, so this was in payment for the shares she was holding - hope that makes sense!).

I have to say that I find it upsetting still finding mail addressed to my parents arriving at the flat well over a year after they died (for some reason the spam mail isn't so bad - we just write "deceased, return to sender" on it and re-post it). Also I am somewhat concerned about the security of mail though the EA always accompanies viewers.

We feel that the co-executor solicitor maybe hasn't done things properly with the shares etc... We have had a number of issues with his handling of the estate, that has a separate (long!) thread that you can find here if you wish to check it out.

But before we can complain about this I'm trying to find out what usually happens in such cases. (we have already made complaints about various aspects of his services, and also been in touch with the Legal Complaints Service)

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help improve our knowledge! :A

dunstonh

It depends on the tax wrapper. Some have to be encashed by the executor and added to estate (or paid out under a trust arrangement). Such as an investment bond. Some can be transferred to the beneficiary or encashed (unit trust, shares etc). ISAs lose their ISA status and become direct holdings. Most will allow transfer but some may insist on encashment.

An experienced professional executor would know this. However dont count on it as I had to deal with one recently who didnt have a clue.

In this case, it appears they are direct holdings (unit trusts or investment trusts) and these can be transferred or sold/encashed. Its for the executor to decide (in conjunction with the beneficiaries) and deal with the paperwork.

ukmaggie45

Thankyou for your reply dunstonh. :A

dunstonh wrote: »

It depends on the tax wrapper. Some have to be encashed by the executor and added to estate (or paid out under a trust arrangement). Such as an investment bond. Some can be transferred to the beneficiary or encashed (unit trust, shares etc). ISAs lose their ISA status and become direct holdings. Most will allow transfer but some may insist on encashment.

So far as I can make out neither Mum nor Dad had any ISAs. Will was made in 1997, but no mention of any of the investments in it. Just cash to beneficiaries, and as only child I am the residual beneficiary. Most of the bonds are Treasury, which finish (can't think of the correct term) over the next few years, latest is 2017.

dunstonh wrote: »

An experienced professional executor would know this. However dont count on it as I had to deal with one recently who didnt have a clue.

Well, the solicitor who is named in wills as executor seems to be particularly incapable, I'm sorry to say we don't trust him an inch. We hear on the grapevine that we are not the only people to have problems... :rolleyes: So we don't rely on him at all if we can help it. And try to double check everything he says.

The shares are not in any trust or anything like that, just shares. One complication is that Cadbury Schweppes split into Cadbury and Dr Snapple (think that was what it's called?) earlier this year, so there are now holdings on the American stock exchange too. Other than that there are shares in around 8 companies, which I think it should be possible to transfer. Though solicitor is being terribly slow over doing anything about it. :mad:

dunstonh wrote: »

In this case, it appears they are direct holdings (unit trusts or investment trusts) and these can be transferred or sold/encashed. Its for the executor to decide (in conjunction with the beneficiaries) and deal with the paperwork.

The F&C thing is named on the papers for probate like this:

Holding 1859.52 (I didn't realise you could have part of a share, is it different in this sort of fund?)

F&C Asset Management Ltd UK Equity Fund (Retail 1)

I have looked for this fund in the FT (the brokers who valued the shares and bonds for probate had a note for this that the data came from FT) but although I can find the F&C section in this Saturday's FT, I can't find anything that's named like that - there seem to be a load of different funds. I assume it will probably have dropped in value since my Mother's death as all the shares have done?
Thanks again for your reply. :T

catz1ct

It shouldn't be too difficult to transfer the shares if you have a probate.

LongTermLurker

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Holding 1859.52 (I didn't realise you could have part of a share, is it different in this sort of fund?)

F&C Asset Management Ltd UK Equity Fund (Retail 1)

F&C UK Equity Income (accumulation units)

F&C UK Equity Income (income units)

Your paperwork should say "acc" or "inc" - are you sure the "retail 1" isn't "retail I"? If you have been receiving dividend cheques for this fund, they are income units. On that basic, your holding would be worth £1121.85 at yesterday's price.

Yes, you can buy fractions of a share in a fund - you pay your money and get the equivalent proportion.

EDIT - big gaff - wrong funds (oops) - corrected in post #11)

ukmaggie45

catz1ct wrote: »

It shouldn't be too difficult to transfer the shares if you have a probate.

Solicitor reckons it will take him over a week to do the paperwork. If he says over a week he probably means over a month (or possible even over a year :mad: ) given our experience of him.

We are trying to get everything turned over to a new solicitor as we have lost confidence (puts it mildly!) in the one that unfortunately was named as executor in wills.

Thanks for your reply, catz1ct. :beer:

ukmaggie45

LongTermLurker wrote: »

F&C UK Equity Income (accumulation units)

F&C UK Equity Income (income units)

Thanks for those. :T But looking at the price I'm not totally convinced this is what I may get at some indeterminate date in the future (due to solicitor's slowness). See below.

LongTermLurker wrote: »

Your paperwork should say "acc" or "inc" - are you sure the "retail 1" isn't "retail I"? If you have been receiving dividend cheques for this fund, they are income units. On that basic, your holding would be worth £1121.85 at yesterday's price.

We don't have any paperwork other than the stock broker's valuation for probate. And that's only a copy - unfortunately it isn't clear if it's a retail 1 or a retail I, but trying to look at other 1s and Is on the same page, I think it is a 1.

My guess is that it's some of the paperwork that was kept in the bank, and that interest was paid directly into Father's bank account. We haven't had any dividend cheques arrive at the flat. Though we have had some dividend cheques from shares, can't remember what just now though, may all have been from Mother's shares.

Unless it gets ploughed back into the F&C account? Is that possible?

Husband and I are very money naive (as I'm sure must be pretty obvious!), so we are trying to learn things as we go along. Never had more than a few pence to rub together before this! Kids are expensive. Both now grown up and well flown the nest now, but husband in lower paid job since they were at uni, plus pension from previous employer. So nothing to spare for savings before, we just staggered on from month to month. :eek: If we ever actually get the moneys paid out from parental estates things will change though - I am reading the forums here, and learning a lot. (but do take onboard that responses are discussion and not advice)

If the holding is only worth a bit over £1K I will be very disappointed - valuation for probate (this would have been on Mother's death, which was September 2007) is given as 2312 per share, giving valuation of 42,992.10.

While I know the stock market is chaotic at the mo, surely whatever fund this is wouldn't have lost quite as much as that in just over a year? I mean I know stocks and shares can go down, but that seems an amazing drop in value.
Thanks very much for trying to help me out LongTermLurker. :T

LongTermLurker wrote: »

Yes, you can buy fractions of a share in a fund - you pay your money and get the equivalent proportion.

Thanks for that - we live and learn! :A

:beer:

kavomix

Hey Ukmaggie,

The figures are quoted in pence not pounds. So at yesterday's quotation the price is 114918p which is £1149.18
Taking your quote it means the price was £4299.21 last september. So the drop is not as steep as you imagined, but nonetheless it still quite a big drop

LongTermLurker

ukmaggie, as kavomax says, the prices are quoted in pence so on your figure of 2312/share, that £23.12 per share, not £2312 - that would be one expensive fund ;-) The price you see is always Yesterday's price, hense why kavomax' valuation (Tuesday's rate) is different to mine (Monday's) - they've gone up 1.47p on inc units and 1.85p on acc units.

Looking at the chart for income units, the fund has dropped about 28% since last November - I estimate about -22% since last Sept

Just looked at the full fund name: "F & C UK Equity Income Fund Class 1 Income Units"

Basically, Income units pay you an income, either by cheque or direct to your bank account, and accumulation usints get rolled back up into the fund - so if it's acc units you have, you wouldn't have received any income from them. ACC units are worth about 17p more each compared with income units.

EDIT - big gaff - wrong funds (oops) - corrected in post #11)

ukmaggie45

Thank you kavomix and LongTimeLurker. :T

The share price given in the valuation for probate is 2312p. So that's £23.12 per share? (price Sep 2007) Unless someone has lost a decimal point somewhere? I have looked and looked at the valuation form, and some of the other shares have prices given to 3 decimal points of a penny for the share price. This one really does say 2312p with no decimal point in it.

There are 1859.52 shares.

Valuation done by Rensburg Sheppards.

I'm not trying to be difficult, just having a helluva time trying to get to grips with everything - see my thread on probate in the Silver Surfers Forum to see why I need to try to get on top of all of this stuff! Basically we don't trust solicitor to have checked stuff out.

The F&C thing may have been taken out quite a while ago - 1997 or possibly earlier. 1997 is when parents moved to flat (and wrote their wills), not sure how much share dealing and so on Father did after that. It might even have been from much longer ago - he always had some sort of share portfolio from when he was 21 (!) and I have no idea how often he traded or added to it.

Both parents were very "private" about money, so we hadn't a clue as to what they had until the probate stuff needed signing (husband is co-executor with solicitor).

LongTermLurker

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Thank you kavomix and LongTimeLurker. :T

The share price given in the valuation for probate is 2312p. So that's £23.12 per share? (price Sep 2007) Unless someone has lost a decimal point somewhere? I have looked and looked at the valuation form, and some of the other shares have prices given to 3 decimal points of a penny for the share price. This one really does say 2312p with no decimal point in it.

There are 1859.52 shares.

I've just realised, I may have given you duff info - there is a F&C UK Equity (not UK Eq Income) and it is priced at 1579p - therefore, if this is what you have, then your holding would be worth £5801.70 - that 1579./share looks closer to your valuation than the 78p that I was misleading you with - sorry for that

I've not seen any funds quoted at 3 decimal places, but raw shares may be. 2312p = £23.12, yes and in light of the market falls since last year, that sounds about right compared with yesterday's price of £15.79

edit - yes, if you go here http://www.h-l.co.uk/funds/fund_performance/sedol/0846389, select timespan = 18 months; type = total return and axis = price, you will see that the price of this fund last September was about £23 - that equates to a 31% loss at the moment sinse your valuation, but it is starting to climb a bit. Incidentally, it's up about 8% on where it was 5 years ago!