Probate

batchoy

LeonW, I'm just finishing distributing my mother's estate and I had no problems with Barclays where my mother had half a dozen accounts totalling about £28K; the estate had to go through probate due to its size.

What you may have is a misunderstanding over how the funds are released. Barclays wont release any of the funds in the accounts to an individual as the estate needs to go to probate, but they will pay the funeral bill out of the funds. With regard to my mother's funeral, the bill arrived a couple of weeks after the event and I simply presented it at the counter in my local Barclays along with my mother's current account details, they sent the bill off to the bereavement team and the bill was paid. This was several months before the Tax and Probate forms were submitted.

CaptainAmerica

Unfortunately Barclays have outsourced their bereavement team to ITC/Chorus Law and they are very pedantic on this point.

I have experience of both before and after the outsourcing, having worked closely with both for the last 6/7 years.

The funeral bill can be paid from the accounts as soon as it is available, now prior to the outsource it was pretty much widely accepted that if the payment of the bill brought the amount under the threshold for GOP, then the funds would be released to the beneficiaries in the will on production of various ID documents.

Now after the outsource, the Barclays bereavement team are very strict on what can be released. if the total in Barclays as at the date of death is over the GOP threshold, they will insist on probate being obtained, even if the amount is only a matter of a few pounds.

To get round this requires someone in the branch with A. experience and B. common sense. What would need to happen is that the branch staff need to complete an instruction to close form send it off to the bereavement centre along with ID from yourself and it hopefully would get through.

Barclays will release funds under the 15k threshold even if assets outside of the bank need probate. Barclays do not take in to account the estate outside of the Bank, all they look at is the total funds within the bank and whether it falls under their own threshold.

Ruthygg

Ljhhuk hi I have similar situation to your..live in edinburgh deceased relative lived in England. Would you recommend the solicitor who took your oath? If so would you kindly pass on contact please. Thanks. Ruthygg

Ruthygg

LeonW wrote: »

My Mother in law recently died and all she has is £17K in 3 Barclays accounts in her name, funeral costs will be £2.5K and the local branch of Barclays told us initialy that this would be taken off and £14.5K would be below their threshold for probate and they would release the funds. Later they contacted their bereavement team who said funeral costs could not come off and as the estate was above £15K at death we would have to go through probate. This seems totally illogical as everything else I have read about probate says that the funeral costs are debited from the estate.

Could anyone with knowledge of this area please comment and any suggestions as to how we get Barclays to take a more sympathetic view and use some discretion at this difficult time would be welcome.

Best Regards

I have 3 experiences of Barclays in this 'sphere' of their business. First was relatively straightforward the second resulted in me closing all accounts with them. The third experience as executor for an aunt throws me back into the ring with them.

g6jns_2

LeonW wrote: »

My Mother in law recently died and all she has is £17K in 3 Barclays accounts in her name, funeral costs will be £2.5K and the local branch of Barclays told us initialy that this would be taken off and £14.5K would be below their threshold for probate and they would release the funds. Later they contacted their bereavement team who said funeral costs could not come off and as the estate was above £15K at death we would have to go through probate. This seems totally illogical as everything else I have read about probate says that the funeral costs are debited from the estate.

Could anyone with knowledge of this area please comment and any suggestions as to how we get Barclays to take a more sympathetic view and use some discretion at this difficult time would be welcome.

Best Regards

I think you have little choice but to apply for probate. It sounds as though Barclays will not budge. From what you say it seems the estate will be quite simple to deal with.

lulu650

I expect this was all dealt with last year.