changing the ownership of shares

denny250

I am helping deal with the estate of my mother in law who sadly passed away about four weeks ago
We found an Abbey shares certificate in mums name which of course we need to change to my wifes name so they can be cashed to help pay toewards funeral costs
There isnt a great deal left in the estate after funeral costs etc so we dont need to wait for probate or pay any death duty
After about two weeks of phone calls etc to the Abbey (or should i say Banco Santander) we have finally recieved a letter saying they need indemnity in case it incurs liabilities if it it does not insist on the full legal process being followed ie the family obtaining a formal grant of representation (which we dont have to do due to the small amount in the estate)

Now comes the good bit they want a small estate declaration and indemnity form countersigned on behalf of the royal sun alliance which they will arrange on our behalf for a premium of £34.50 and an administration charge of £28.20 which means we have to pay them £62.70 for the pleasure of a signiture

Anyone got any ideas how to stop these people making money out of my mother in laws death which is what they want to do?


If not i thought i would put this on here so that no one uses Banco Santander for anything if they can help it because they are obviously calculating money grabbers

jonesMUFCforever

Abbey are now part of Santander group so any old Abbey share certificate will be worth nothing.
She should have had a new certificate or perhaps she sold just after the transaction took place as many others did (Spanish tax on the dividends?)

Santander are no different to any other bank or quoted PLC - you have to pay to get the change of name. If you were to enquire at your bank I'm sure you find that the charge would be higher.
Their charges are not out of line with what everybody else charges.

denny250

ejones999 wrote: »

Abbey are now part of Santander group so any old Abbey share certificate will be worth nothing.
.

she didnt change them and we have been told they are worth something i still feel its a typical bank rip off we are doing this because the person has died not because we want to chane the name on the shares

moonrakerz

Banco Santander shouldn't pay anything until Probate has been granted and even then only on being given a sealed copy of Probate.

Was there a Will ?, who is /are executors ? Just because "There isnt a great deal left in the estate" doesn't mean that you can just go ahead and parcel out what little there is.

Please be careful with what you are doing.

denny250

moonrakerz wrote: »

Banco Santander shouldn't pay anything until Probate has been granted and even then only on being given a sealed copy of Probate.

Was there a Will ?, who is /are executors ? Just because "There isnt a great deal left in the estate" doesn't mean that you can just go ahead and parcel out what little there is.

Please be careful with what you are doing.

are you sure about this as she had an account in natwest and a book acount in Abbey they didnt even question it before changing them into my wifes name Also from what i have read and been told we dont need to wait till probate because after all is paid out there will only be a couple of hundred pounds if that

denny250

Having spoken to the probate office we do not need to apply for probate as gross value of the estate is less than £5000
All we need is letters of administration which cost £1 per copy having said that according to the guy on the probate helpline most banks building societies and insurance firms don't ask for those either when the value is less than £10,000
Apparently he too had heard bad things about the Abbey

BASERATE_2

SEE my entry entitled- should we tolerate poor service

jonesMUFCforever

denny250 wrote: »

Having spoken to the probate office we do not need to apply for probate as gross value of the estate is less than £5000
All we need is letters of administration which cost £1 per copy having said that according to the guy on the probate helpline most banks building societies and insurance firms don't ask for those either when the value is less than £10,000
Apparently he too had heard bad things about the Abbey

I think you are mixing your legal terms up.
Letters of administration is a version of Probate where there is no will.

Small estates do not need one of these. You simply complete an indemnity form stating that you have power to act and that if any claim arises at any time in the future you will indemnify (in this case Santander) them.
They take the risk that you are telling the truth (but of course insure against something going wrong by having you sign up to a counter indemnity through an insurance company).

vaksam

We are going throught the same situation with the Abbey at the moment. My question is this - how on earth can they claim that a 'premium of £34.50' for a signature on a letter is justified? Much less the further charge of £28 for administration!

I find it all very strange, especially in light of the recent publicity regarding unjustified bank charges.

jonesMUFCforever

vaksam wrote: »

We are going throught the same situation with the Abbey at the moment. My question is this - how on earth can they claim that a 'premium of £34.50' for a signature on a letter is justified? Much less the further charge of £28 for administration!

I find it all very strange, especially in light of the recent publicity regarding unjustified bank charges.

It is not £34.50 just for a signature.
They then take on the risk that nobody else claims the shares for themselves (eg a will is found some time in the future and the shares should have gone to somebody else) at a future date.

It has nothing to do with bank charges.

denny250

ejones999 wrote: »

It is not £34.50 just for a signature.
They then take on the risk that nobody else claims the shares for themselves (eg a will is found some time in the future and the shares should have gone to somebody else) at a future date.

It has nothing to do with bank charges.

your right about the £34.50 which is an indemnity premium but in my opinion £28 administration charge is unjustified