House not mentioned in estate?

Skibunny40

I was looking through some old paperwork relating to my dad's death and I have a question.

There's what looks like the final estate information that was compiled from the solicitor and all his assets are listed in it, including joint bank accounts etc, but there's no mention of the house which I'm sure was in joint names (no mortgage). Shouldn't this have been included as an asset?! Mum and dad had/have mirror wills if that makes a difference?

There's no point asking Mum as she simply won't remember! Just wondered if anyone knows if there was an obvious reason it wouldn't have been listed?

Yorkshireman99

Skibunny40 wrote: »

I was looking through some old paperwork relating to my dad's death and I have a question.

There's what looks like the final estate information that was compiled from the solicitor and all his assets are listed in it, including joint bank accounts etc, but there's no mention of the house which I'm sure was in joint names (no mortgage). Shouldn't this have been included as an asset?! Mum and dad had/have mirror wills if that makes a difference?

There's no point asking Mum as she simply won't remember! Just wondered if anyone knows if there was an obvious reason it wouldn't have been listed?

If the house was a joint tenancy then it might have passed to your mother upon the death without forming part of his estate. A look at the Land Registry entry may tell you.

G_M

The fact that it was owned as joint tenants certainly determines where ownership passes (to the other joint tenant - spouse).

But it was still an asset owned by the deceased, so should be listed I would have thought.

Yorkshireman99

G_M wrote: »

The fact that it was owned as joint tenants certainly determines where ownership passes (to the other joint tenant - spouse).

But it was still an asset owned by the deceased, so should be listed I would have thought.

A joint tenancy does not pass by will so there may well be no mention of it.

Tuesday_Tenor

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

A joint tenancy does not pass by will so there may well be no mention of it.

Yorkshireman is correct; the property passes 'by survivorship'.

Although 'passes' never sounds like quite the right word to me.
It's not that the property actually passes to anyone, but the form of ownership changes for the continuing owner.

In a Joint Tenancy each party owns 100% of the property, but jointly.
After the death of one party, the other party still owns 100% of the property, but now in their sole name. The property never forms part of the deceased's estate.

This was almost certainly the case for your parents and their property.

The other form of joint ownership is Tenants In Common. In this case, each party owns a % of the property, typically 50% each. Each person can leave their 50% to anyone they wish in their will. So in this case the 50% share of the property DOES form part of the deceased's estate. (And if there is no will it will be inherited, along with the rest of the estate, according to the laws of intestacy).

Tuesday_Tenor

... But I agree that it's odd for joint bank accounts to have been included in a list where the jointly-owned house wasn't.

I believe that on the IHT forms half of such joint assets (both bank accounts and property) ARE initially listed.

But when it comes to the final value of the estate for distribution, they would NOT be included, as they have passed, by survivorship, to the other joint owner.

So what OP is describing sounds a bit inconsistent.

getmore4less

There's what looks like the final estate information that was compiled from the solicitor and all his assets are listed in it, including joint bank accounts etc, but there's no mention of the house which I'm sure was in joint names (no mortgage). Shouldn't this have been included as an asset?!


The thing with joint assets is they may pass by survivorship but still form part of the taxable estate some forget this very important fact.

Estate accounts and asset lists to be complete probably should contain the relevant information but for distribution purposes they are not needed so only the assets that are to be distributed need to be included.

Seems a bit unusual to include some joint assets but not others.
Are they identified as survivorship or distribution?


A joint tenancy house should be included on IHT capital return, the estate accounts may just have an IHT entry or non at all in the case where no IHT is payable.

In practice where the joint owner is a spouse the spouse exemptions kick in so the assets can fall off the lists that way rather than be documented properly.

troubleinparadise

How long ago was your father's death? Rules may have changed since then.

Skibunny40

It was 9 years ago. The more I read, the more questions I have, so I think I'll just get in contact with the solicitor.

Thanks to everyone for their help though!