Probate help required. Do not have a clue.

Tuesday_Tenor

1) First of all - don't panic. Don't rush. Yes, be active in 'getting on with things' if that helps. Many people find that the sorting through things is a necessary and often therapeutic part of the grieving process. But also remember we all experience grief differently and your mother may need a bit of time to just feel stunned and unfocussed, and might not not be in the right space to sort things out immediately.

2) Others have mentioned the 'Which' Guide to Wills and Probate which I also recommend. Alternatively there are now some very useful pages on the government website:
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Death/Preparation/DG_10029716
Also there are threads on the MSE 'Over 50s' message board asking some of the same questions as yourself.


3) The responsibilities of the executors are to identify all the assets of the deceased person's estate, to ensure any Inheritance Tax(IHT) (if applicable) is paid, and to distribute the assets in accordance with the will.

Applying for the grant of probate is the process by which (a) the Executors' right to distribute the assets is confirmed and (b) an indication of the value of the estate is calculated to see whether the IHT threshold is reached.

Someone mentioned your mother appointing you Executor instead. No, sorry, as you weren't one of the listed Executors that can't happen. Read up about how she can stand down and leave it all to your Uncle if that's appropriate. Sounds more likely she should stay Executor but use you to do a lot of the work, if you're willing.

No assets should be disposed of until the grant of probate has been obtained by the Executors. So, strictly speaking, the 3 vehicles shouldn't have been transferred to family members as you describe. Don't panic, as you've just jumped the gun on what your mother would choose to do with the 3 vehicles that SHE is inheriting. There are no other beneficiaries of such things so no further muddle will ensue. But remember that the value of those vehicles will need to be included in the list of assets at time of death. [And if any of those 3 people had been named beneficiaries then the value of the cars already received would have had to be taken into account before they got the rest of their share. But that's not relevant here].

4) Using solicitors or not? Solicitors will charge a massive fee for applying for the grant of the probate. Even though the really time-consuming work is the finding and gathering of the information which the Executors have to do anyway. If both Executors are hopeless at form-filling then you may have to us a solicitor. Anyone who is organised should be able to do it themselves, though. The IHT form guidance book looks daunting but if you go through and cross out every section that doesn't apply, you'll probably find that you have a relatively simple exercise left!

If the Executors decide to do it themsleves (using you to do both the donkey work and detailed forms if necessary, though they remain responsible) they can always later choose to use a solicitor if it turns out to be more complex that expected. I would suggest starting out to do it yourselves.

5) You WILL need to know whether the jointly-owned house was held as joint tenants or tenants in common. The usual advice is to look on the Land Registry site (£4 search I think) but this information WASN'T specified on their entry for my parents house and we had to check with the solicitor who held the deeds.

Hope this helpd pnt you in the right direction.

InNeedofHelp

Thanks for the reply. It was very helpful.

Regards selling: I wasn't aware that we shouldn't have transferred ownership of the vehicles. I felt this had to be done though.
With my dads car - my mum was named on his policy, so they said she was still insured, but only until it ran out in November.
My brothers insurance policy, as with my sisters, had them down as being the owner. With my dad being the owner, this was therefore illegal. This was aside from the fact that the insurance companies said that in both my brother & sisters case, that my dad as the policy holder, having died, made the policy void. If you have no insurance - you're owning a car illegally now on the continuous insurance policy.

That was the reasoning behind the change.

How do we value a vehicle though (accurately)? What i may say is £1000, you may say is £1500.

With the vehicles, i'm assuming that we'd STILL need to factor in their value, even though the V5C has been changed?

** i should point out here that i'm not challenging you, so my apologies if you think i am. I'm trying to understand where i am / we are.

As said, we did view something on the house, but i'm not sure if it's any use. I've taken screenshots & made it anonymous to see if it'll help you answer me.

If this doesn't help - then how do we find out HOW the house was owned?

Savvy_Sue

I can't read either of those screenshots! Are you able to select any of the text and copy and paste it? The key phrases are 'tenants in common' and 'joint tenants': if you can spot either of those let us know! Also whether there's any mention of anyone else (could be a loan company, for example), having a charge registered against the house.

As for valuing the cars, I believe there are online guides, Parker's and Glass's are two which spring to mind. Or I think there's at least one of these in-your-face advertisements "we buy any car, put in your registration number to find out what we'd pay" - you don't need an exact value, just a reasonable one which you can justify to HMRC should you be required to do so. You could even look in Exchange and Mart, or again online, to see what you'd have to pay to buy a car of similar age and mileage.

InNeedofHelp

You can't read them? :huh: Did you click them? I put them in thumbnail format so that they wouldn't take forever loading up for people. If you click them & then click the photo again, it should be readable.

Anyway, no there's no mention of joint tenants or tenants in common i'm afraid.

I scoured the paperwork last night of when my parents began buying the house back in about 1993. I may be a bit green here - but was those terms around back then? I only ask because through ALL the paperwork i went through, i didn't see any mention of either of those terms.

One thing i did find was that the deeds (perhaps original) were lost. There's a national company that owned a lot of houses (without going into detail) & around 1990 they were selling these houses off dirt cheap. Our house would probably be in excess of £200k in todays market. In 1993 the papers mention buying it for £19.6k. As i was only a little one then, i don't fully understand, but my mum told me that the house was dirt dirt cheap as this company wanted rid. Rent from 1985 - 1993 (we moved here in 1985) was also dirt cheap she said. Something like £12 a week/month (can't remember which she said now).
Anyway, deeds to houses which this company owned went up in flames years ago. There's paperwork mentioning this.

So that's one bit of info i found out, but i still couldn't find any mention of the phrases "tenants in common" or "joint tenants".

Errata

HTH

How do you find out how you own a property?
The answer to this is that you need to look at the title deeds. Most house deeds in England or Wales have a registered title. This means that there will be a record of ownership at HM Land Registry. You may have a print of the register entries but you will need to get a copy from HM Land Registry to check up to date information - you can do this via the Land Registry online service at http://www.landregisteronline.gov.uk/ . Once you have a copy of the register you will find there is a section headed 'Proprietorship Register'. If you look in that there may be a entry which reads something similar to -

No disposition by a sole proprietor of the land (not being a trust corporation) under which capital money arises is to be registered except under an order of the Registrar or the Court

If that entry is there, then you are tenants in common. If it is not, then you are beneficial joint tenants

InNeedofHelp

Errata wrote: »

No disposition by a sole proprietor of the land (not being a trust corporation) under which capital money arises is to be registered except under an order of the Registrar or the Court

Thanks for that!!

See, i've been looking all this time for the terms "joint tenants" and/or "tenants in common", specifically.

Now, i'd have to go back through the paperwork to be 100% sure, but i'm quite sure i saw that wording "disposition by a sole proprietor" certainly rings bells.

So if this IS the case, and it was owned "tenants in common" .... then what does this actually mean in the current situation (that my dad has died & we're hoping the house automatically passes to my mum).

Errata

You're welcome. Joint Tenants means that each tenant owns the whole of the property and it automatically passes to the surviving tenant on the death of the first tenant; in this case, your mum.
Joint Tenants ownership was pretty general at the time your parents bought the house, it's only in latter years that Tenants in Common ownership has become more 'popular' (possibly to protect a spouse when the other spouse needs residential care).

Crabapple

Um, Errata has that the wrong way around, sorry. It looks from that land registry entry though that they were joint tenants so the transfer is automatic in law and the land registry will only need a short form filling out. If they had been tenants in common the Grant of Probate would be needed to transfer it even though it is left to your mother in the Will.

Regarding the paperwork and solicitors, there's a lot of people on here anti that by the looks of things! You certainly can help your mother and uncle get the papers together and fill them in and the first stage is the fact-finding by going through paperwork. However, if they are more comfortable getting a solicitor's firm to do it then that is their call. They have to be given an estimate in writing, and if the solicitors aren't appointed, if it seems high then you can shop around. Just because that firm holds the Will doesn't mean you have to use them as opposed to another firm.

Not all firms will charge percentages, especially for smaller estates, but if they do it will be in their terms. You can all ask for that stuff in writing before they start any work and decide if the costs outweigh the hassle. I'm all for MSE obvioiusly, but it does depend how confident the Executors are with dealing with forms and assets, how complicated things are (not so likely to be where almost all goes to a surviving spouse) and having the time to do it all.

Sorry for your loss, this is always the hardest time for families and you can take a step back and deal with the paperwork later.

Errata

Um, Errata has that the wrong way around, sorry.

Indeed I did, and I've now corrected my post and screwed my head on the right way round
Thank you for spotting my error

InNeedofHelp

Thanks a lot guys.

I think if it's a few £100 then my mum would happily pay a solicitor, just to know that everything will be 'right'. If it starts getting towards the better (or worse actually) end of 4 figures, then she'll be a bit undecided.

It's difficult knowing what was owed to him, what he owned & such. We only have this briefcase to go off really, but if he had paid subscriptions to something else that wasn't in this briefcase, then we wont have a clue - insurance policies & such.

I know there's a death policy that was found, but there's also been mention of "dying within 5 years of retirement" as another payout. My mums friend, whos husband worked with my dad & paid into the same things said that he has this. It's just a question as to whether my dad did/does & if so, going through the necessary procedure with it all.