Executor - expenses

RabbitMad

baby_boomer wrote: »

Flat management charge (it's a leasehold property).
Utility bills for the property.
Insurance for property contents.
Funeral.

All these are the direct costs of the estate; no problem there but, as before, it is your duty to minimise them where possible, eg by terminating the lease as soon as is practicable.

No the leasehold property is an asset - DO NOT terminate the lease.

Biggles

RabbitMad wrote: »

No the leasehold property is an asset - DO NOT terminate the lease.

I was reading that as being a rented flat. If it's owned leasehold, then you are right (though if so, it wouldn't be possible to terminate the lease anyway).

Savvy_Sue

dzug1 wrote: »

Would the HMRC official mileage rate be an acceptable allowance for travel?

Biggles wrote: »

That's the one I used, the long-term one, 25p a mile. I decided the 'Up to 10,000 miles in a year' rate of 40p wouldn't be reasonable.

I've claimed 40p per mile. Perhaps if it was a very long journey I wouldn't.

Because I'm a joint executor, we've set up a spreadsheet in Google Docs. All our expenses are listed there, what they were for, when they were incurred, and then when I pay them the date any cheques were written. It's all slowed down now but I used to check monthly what we'd each spent and write cheques then.

I bought some books of stamps, claimed for them, and kept them in the file with the copies of correspondence so I don't use them for my personal correspondence. My co-executor claims for individual stamps.

BTW, you could also claim for phone calls if you've had to make a lot.

Biggles

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I've claimed 40p per mile. Perhaps if it was a very long journey I wouldn't.

There was also the fact that I was a beneficiary, equally with my brother & sister, so needed to be extra fair, if you know what I mean.....

Savvy_Sue

Biggles wrote: »

There was also the fact that I was a beneficiary, equally with my brother & sister, so needed to be extra fair, if you know what I mean.....

Yes, I know what you mean! I think if it was just my co-executor he would not claim as much as he has, but he wants to be fair to me and insists I claim what I am entitled to, so I insist he is fair to himself ...

but the other beneficiaries are just grateful not to have to do the work themselves, so they're not fussed! At least if they are, they haven't dared to say so ...

edda

baby_boomer: I found that the key is to get organised at the start and stay organised throughout when dealing with the estate accounts.

I went to the library and got out a couple of books. One I found gave some layouts for final accounts - and that helped me work backwards to what I needed. (Age of the books doesn't matter - the process is still similar, but don't rely on them being 100% accurate).

I'm keeping Excel spreadsheets - as many as I needed. I have one for all assets and another for all expenses. For expenses, I log the date; amount; brief description; and category (e.g. funeral; probate expenses; property maintenance; property improvements). These categories can be used to summarise and produce the final accounts. I also have one for liabilities at death (e.g. utilities; credit cards etc).

I'm keeping a separate one for all travel - date; miles; reason for trip. I plan to claim an amount per mile at the end. (Probably 40p - as I'm not claiming for any other expenses such as time taken from work etc).

Allow for everyhting to take longer than you expect - so log it all as you go (you will forget to do it otherwise).

One final thing - my sympathy to you. In all of this, you've still lost someone you care about.

baby_boomer

Excellent advice and thanks for your kind thoughts, Edda.

baby_boomer

Biggles wrote: »

I would not mix your money and that of the estate. If there were ever any query, it would make it much harder to convince the beneficiaries that everything was above board. The bank will allow any initial urgent expenses (eg funeral) out of the account of the deceased.

Good advice, Biggles.

The Estate accounts at Lloyds and NatWest won't allow transactions until grant of probate - so there's no point adding your own money.

I have opened a separate personal current account to deal with estate expenses in order to keep track of things for accounting purposes. I intend to reimburse this account from the Estate account after grant of probate.

Biggles

baby_boomer wrote: »

The Estate accounts at Lloyds and NatWest won't allow transactions until grant of probate - so there's no point adding your own money.

They will allow funeral expenses (as this often has to happen before probate is granted). I think they usual procedure is to take the bank the invoice and they settle it themselves.