All to surviving partner - still need to go to named executor?

ic

Hopefully a simple question. My granddad died last week. He and my grandma have very typical mirror wills that leave everything to one another on the first death, and then equally to their three children. The will was drawn up through some arrangement at work, and the company drawing up the will are named as the only executors of the will.

Given everything is to transfer to my grandma now, do we still have to approach the named executor and use their services? Is there anything we should gather together in advance of contacting them to help smooth along the process? (pension details, bank details, etc).

Thanks

TonyMMM

The executor has to legally execute the will and unless they are willing to renounce the role you are stuck with them. Will writing companies make their money from charging big fees for doing simple probate work - the writing of he will is almost a give-away for them.

But - Do you know what the estate consists of ?

Any property held in joint names will automatically go to your grandma, and any bank accounts that are in his name only, depending on the amounts, may be released by the banks without probate. So there may be a chance that probate isn't needed at all.

Next step would be for your grandma to make a new will asap, naming a family member as executor.

Tuesday_Tenor

(Am assuming England or Wales. Terminology, and possibly rules, are different for Scotland).

The simple answer is: Yes, you need to contact the named executor, who is responsible for dealing with the estate. When the executor is a company like this, much of the groundwork (arranging funeral, finding paperwork, initially notifying institutions of the death, etc.) will no doubt fall on the family.

However there are some exceptional circumstances that might apply, or allow a different course of action. So you need to consider the following when approaching the executors:

A) Did Grandad actually have assets in his sole name?
If property was owned with Grandma as JOINT TENANTS (rather than as TENANTS IN COMMON) and everything else (bank accounts etc) was also owned jointly, then grandma now automatically owns these solely by survivorship, and grandad left no estate to be dealt with.

If grandad's estate involved property in his sole name, or held as tenants in common, or shares, or sigificccant amounts of cash, then probate will be required. What is the nature of the assets and the approx value of the estate?

C) If the family think they don't need the company to act as executor, they might be able to persuade the company to renounce executorship. The company might consider doing this, especially if the estate is very small.

Assuming probate IS required, the renouncing would be done on the official form (PA1) and the family member(s) taking it on would be applying for the grant of representation in the form of 'Letters of Administration, with Will Annexed'.
(Because there IS a will, but they were not the named executors. It's the same as probate, but different terminology in this situation).
The eligibility order for applying to be Administrator would start with the widow, then children.

Hope this helps you start exploring what's needed and what's possible.

Mojisola

ic wrote: »

My granddad died last week. He and my grandma have very typical mirror wills that leave everything to one another on the first death, and then equally to their three children.

Given everything is to transfer to my grandma now, do we still have to approach the named executor and use their services?

If property and accounts are all in joint names, the estate probably won't have to go to probate.

Otherwise, the executor will need to get probate.

As soon as possible, get grandma to make a new will, naming family members as executors.

susancs

When my father died last year as everything was in joint names my mother (his wife) did not need to go via probate or get the executors involved. She filled in land registry forms and sent these with the death certificate to have the houses in her sole name, same with banks, car etc. fortunately the registrar had recommended getting lots of copies at the time of the registration of the death as they were required.

My parents mirror wills were done by their solicitors who were executors and my mother realised that had it gone via them they would have charged a percentage of the estate for little work so removed them via codicil as executors and replaced them with family.

ic

Thanks all.

I think it stands that the vast majority of the money and shares are in joint names. It looks like there is only one share holding of approx £700 value is his sole name. I hope the house is in joint names, he did buy the house with his aunt before he met my Grandma, but then inherited it when his Aunt died - by which time he was married to my Grandma. Hopefully he got the house registered in both their names at that point. Unfortunately I can't check on that detail right now as the land registry is down for maintenance.

We'll certainly get my Grandma's will updated to avoid this problem in the future. It sounds like we need to contact the various companies direct to see what their stance is, hopefully most will just want the death certificate.

Most sites seem to talk about handling sole accounts where probate is definitely required - little detail is ever given to how joint accounts are handled.

TonyMMM

Selling or transferring a share holding will require probate.