No will help please

Slowdown

My FIL died last summer without a will. He was married but the house was in his sole name. He also had a bank account with a few thousand in it. In total the estate is worth approx £335,000.
The account money was transferred to my MIL but what happens to the house?
Probate was applied for by my husband and we were sent an inheritance tax bill to be paid in instalments. My MIL rang the tax office to ask if she could sell the house. It is not in her name yet. They told her she should not pay any tax and the house should go straight to her. Is this right?
It's all quite confusing to go through this without professional help and I am not the brightest spark on the legal ins and outs.
If anyone can give me any info about what happens to the house and tax I would greatly appreciate it.
Kind regards
Slowdown

RAS

I was reminded last week that there is no IHT payable on transfers between married couples.

You need to read this on intestacy http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cto/customerguide/page14-1.htm

Slowdown

Thanks for the link, I'll take a look.
Kind regards
Slowdown

Mojisola

Slowdown wrote: »

My FIL died last summer without a will. He was married but the house was in his sole name. He also had a bank account with a few thousand in it. In total the estate is worth approx £335,000.

It's a common misconception that a spouse will inherit everything on the death of a husband/wife.

If there are children, the spouse only gets the first £250,000 with a life interest in half of the remainder. The other half of the remainder (a quarter of the estate) goes to the children.

This can result in the surviving spouse having to sell the family home in order to give the children their share.

madbadrob

Therein lies the problem, has Mojisola says she is only entitled to the first 250k of the estate and a life interest in half of the rest. Therefore unless she can come up with 42500 to split between her children then the house may well have to be sold to cover that. Obviously the children could take a share in the house to cover this and then give her a life interest in their share to save this happening

Rob