Final probate accounting

jude_pmc

Must I do a formal final accounting? If it is tricky we can pay our IHT accountant to sort it out but it looks straightforward. Can the estate accounts be the comprehensive record we have kept? Do I have to provide paperwork to my siblings?

I would love to hear your thoughts on this. …

Situation is that I am one of 5 siblings. My mother left shares and house to be divided between us. I and my brother are executors. We are reaching the end of the process (which has taken 4 years as some members of the family did not want the house to be sold immediately).

All payments in and out have gone through the Executor’s bank account and I have a spreadsheet copy that explains each item, and my siblings have all participated in the decisions.

In the first year as Executors we sold the shares etc and paid the capital gains and income tax on dividends. Since then there has been no income (reported in two years of executors’ tax returns) as the only possible source is the bank account but this does not pay any interest

As executors we have paid all final bills including IHT tax, plus the additional ones needed for the upkeep of the house

The house is to be sold by 3 siblings to 2. The IHT accountant has arranged the paperwork so that it passes to the beneficiaries before sale and therefore the corresponding stamp duty and capital gains becomes the responsibility of each individual sibling

We will need to do an executors tax return for this year and the few weeks of next before we close the process but this will show no income or capital gains

I could ask each sibling to sign something to simply say they agree they have been given their correct share according to the situation shown in the spreadsheet

We haven’t been providing R185 as we go along as we have taken the route of informally ‘lending’ money to beneficiaries so officially it is all still to be given (though it is all recorded in the spreadsheet) – and as it is inheritance surely they won’t need to declare it except for the capital gains on the house.

Many thanks for reading this

getmore4less

A simple inventory and account is what you need to summarise.

Every asset listed with value.

All the income.

Everywhere money/assets went.

Simple table should suffice.

the house transaction looks to be outside the estate.

Any(including capital) distribution should trigger the distribution of accumulated income and the relevent tax credits.

jude_pmc

It looks like I never responded to your message - just want to thanks, the advice was very useful.