Mirror Wills - Do you HAVE to extract Probate ?

onesixfive

Dad died in 2004.
Grant of probate was never extracted for his estate.
Although he & mum both had/have mirror wills (which have not been superseded), which were written before he died - we were told Probate wasn’t always required - this typically arises when the value of the deceased persons assets is very small or when the majority of the assets are held jointly.
Since we understood both aspects applied - the assets will be automatically passed to the surviving partner. ie: Mum.
Mum has no savings to speak of. I'm an only child.
There is a property involved (Mums house - value appx £80k - ie: under tax threshold) - I simply assumed it would auto transfer to mum - (myself & my hubby also have a (60%) stake in the property - we helped them buy it from the council, and we each have wills).


(This has all come to the surface as a result of some old insurance papers of mums)

• Should we have extracted probate for dad when he died?
• Was it really necessary?
• Is it too late to do it now?
• Am I panicking unnecessarily?

getmore4less

How was the house held, tenants in common or Joint.

Was anything done to change ownership or just left?

Any mortgage?


If the house has gone up in value you may be in for a CGT assessment when disposed of.

onesixfive

Thanks. It was always joint tenancy when council, Then it was joint ownership once bought.
When dad died nothing has been done to change ownership.
No mortgage - it was paid for outright from mutual savings - hence our interest noted (we helped money-wise).
Everything has just been left.
Its value now is only £80k. It's value on purchase about 16 years ago was about £35k, but with right to buy they got substantial discount.

getmore4less

Any CGT for a non resident benificial interest will be based on what was paid not what it was worth.

If it realy is joint then a death cert and a form to the land registry should remove dad.

madbadrob

With regards to probate being needed if they were joint tenants in that they both owned 100% of the property and so long as when Dad died he had no shares then probate would not be required. Your mum will also get his IHT threhsold as well so she could have up to 650k before that would need to be repaid.

When mum passes you would have to obtain probate because of the house

Rob