Inheritance money and property.

Marisco

I'm asking this for a friend of mine as she is not online, so I said I'd do it for her. Her sister died and the estate is divided between her and her brother, probate has been granted, but the solicitor has said that all the estate has to be together before distribution.

Now her sister had a house, mortgage free, which is in the process of being sold, this could take a while. Her brother lives abroad and with this Brexit malarky, is worried about exchange rates. Can the money part of the inheritance be divided out, or do they have to wait for the house to be sold and the lot done together?

I thought, and so did she, that it didn't have to wait until the house is sold, but as neither of us are sure, I told her I'd ask on here, cheers.

getmore4less

distributions can be made prior to all assets being liquidated.

Solicitor may have reasons for not distributing.

Marisco

getmore4less wrote: »

distributions can be made prior to all assets being liquidated.

Solicitor may have reasons for not distributing.

Thanks, that's what we thought.

Mojisola

Marisco wrote: »

I'm asking this for a friend of mine as she is not online, so I said I'd do it for her. Her sister died and the estate is divided between her and her brother, probate has been granted, but the solicitor has said that all the estate has to be together before distribution.

Can the money part of the inheritance be divided out, or do they have to wait for the house to be sold and the lot done together?

The solicitor will want to keep back some cash but there's no reason why the bulk of it shouldn't be distributed.

If your friend is willing to wait to wait for her share, all the spare cash could go now to her brother. She will then get a larger share after the house is sold so that they still end up with a 50/50 split.

Yorkshireman99

Mojisola wrote: »

The solicitor will want to keep back some cash but there's no reason why the bulk of it shouldn't be distributed.

If your friend is willing to wait to wait for her share, all the spare cash could go now to her brother. She will then get a larger share after the house is sold so that they still end up with a 50/50 split.

There may be various reasons why the solicitor will not distribute for at least six months. To suggest that there is no reason without knowing the facts is simply wrong.

Marisco

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

There may be various reasons why the solicitor will not distribute for at least six months. To suggest that there is no reason without knowing the facts is simply wrong.

What would the reasons be? Everything is straightforward, that is what my friend cannot understand. She tends to be more cynical than me (and that takes some doing )

She reckons the solicitors are keeping it in their accounts to make as much interest as possible out of it, as the amount is quite substantial (but just below the inheritance tax threshold)

Mojisola

Marisco wrote: »

Her sister died and the estate is divided between her and her brother, probate has been granted, but the solicitor has said that all the estate has to be together before distribution.
.

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

There may be various reasons why the solicitor will not distribute for at least six months. To suggest that there is no reason without knowing the facts is simply wrong.

The solicitor has said that all the estate has to be gathered in - presumably he means 'put into cash'. That's not true.

With a mortgage-free house to sell, the total value of the estate must be roughly known. As long as the solicitor keeps back enough cash to pay for any bills that may come in related to the estate, there's no reason why an interim settlement couldn't be paid out.

If there is another good reason, such as the solicitor waiting for possible replies to a notice in the LG or similar, he should be able to explain those reasons.

Yorkshireman99

Mojisola wrote: »

The solicitor has said that all the estate has to be gathered in - presumably he means 'put into cash'. That's not true.

With a mortgage-free house to sell, the total value of the estate must be roughly known. As long as the solicitor keeps back enough cash to pay for any bills that may come in related to the estate, there's no reason why an interim settlement couldn't be paid out.

If there is another good reason, such as the solicitor waiting for possible replies to a notice in the LG or similar, he should be able to explain those reasons.

No solicitor, nor any prudent executor, is going to distribute significant amounts until the time for any dependent relatives to make a claim or for the time allowed for in the Gazette notice has expired. Given that we have only hear third hand it unwise to draw conclusions based just on what we have been told.

Mojisola

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

No solicitor, nor any prudent executor, is going to distribute significant amounts until the time for any dependent relatives to make a claim or for the time allowed for in the Gazette notice has expired. Given that we have only hear third hand it unwise to draw conclusions based just on what we have been told.

But quite reasonable to suggest to the OP that the reason given by the solicitor isn't sufficient to refuse to do an interim payment and to ask more questions.

If the solicitor has good reasons, that should quickly become clear.

getmore4less

IF the only thing stopping the distribution is the sale of the house you could tell them to stop and assent it to yourselves and then sell it yourself in your own time frame.
Solicitors may not like that, even if the will says sell you can still jointly buy it.

not without new problem like there can be sale issues with this but they can usually be overcome and it gets the solicitor out of the loop.

They may still not distribute s they are just using the must have everything collected to save them explaining the real reasons.

People can speculate on reasons why but the only answer that matters is what the solicitors want to tell you.

Marisco

As far as I can gather, and when she knew I was going to ask on here, she gave me the full SP. There are no other dependants, the will left all the estate to be equally divided between her and her brother, including the house. Neither of them want the house (brother lives abroad) so decided together to sell it. Probate has been granted, and she found a buyer for the house, that had nothing to do with the solicitor.

All the assets minus house has been collected, and according to the solicitor, they have to wait until the house is sold before the money is distributed. What she wanted to know is, is this correct, does the house have to be sold first, or can they dish out the money now, and then dish out the house sale money at a later date, when the house is sold? It's all to do with exchange rates for the brother apparently.

Keeping it until the house is sold might be easier for the solicitor, but is it a legal requirement, or can they insist that the assets, minus house, is divided up now? I think I've covered the points she made.