Confusion regarding probate.

mushymatt

Hi All.

So, long story short, my mother passed away last week, leaving only me and my sister as known relatives. We also have a will that leaves everything to us.

The estate is valued at about £250-£280k in total (though thats an educated guess...Ive not yet had the house valued)

My mothers assets consist of a house, its low value contents, and approx £34k in saving all sitting in multiple accounts, but all with the same bank (nationwide).

So I believe everything is as simple as it gets.

With that in mind Im considering doing it DIY. Is there anyone on here who has advice/tips/tricks as to what to expect. Im a little clueless.

TonyMMM

With a property to sell then you ( or whoever the will names as executor) will have to apply for probate - but for that type of estate, getting probate is very straightforward - just a couple of forms to fill in and an oath to take.

Start here:

https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/applying-for-a-grant-of-representation

It is something you can take your time over - no rush. If needed, the bank will arrange to release funds for funeral expenses before probate is granted.

Kynthia

Will there be any pensions with her current or previous employers? Any bank accounts or insurances you might not know about?

mushymatt

Kynthia wrote: »

Will there be any pensions with her current or previous employers?

extremely unlikely - Id say no.

Mum has been a house wife for the best part of 40 years.

Kynthia wrote: »

Any bank accounts or insurances you might not know about?

Again not that I know of, My mum and dad (10 years gone) had an old fashioned view of sticking with the same bank for literally forever.

I wouldnt rule it out, but so far Ive seen no documents that show anything else other than standard pensions, and all money seems to be kept with a single bank.

I would say though...My mums house has £8k left to pay on the mortgage. We would pay that off either when the money becomes available or I can afford to pay it off immediately.

ahja

Go for it! My mum died in July and had about the same amount of estate so as there is no need for any involvement from tax people it is very straightforward, just a little time consuming to get everything together. Most firms have dedicated bereavement lines to deal with too.

So just a case of downloading the necessary forms from the gov website, getting the info required, sending it off. You get back a form that needs signing either at the probate office or local solicitor, send that back and you get the probate letter to close accounts, deal with the house etc.

I imagined it to be a shedload of headaches, but it is so straightforward. We were lucky that someone was ready to buy the house which we have already sold, so by 3 - 4 months we have fully finished with the estate - hand it to a solicitor and it could even go to a year (not to mention the cost!)

ThemeOne

I did my own probate and inheritance tax for my father's estate earlier this year. It wasn't that difficult, and probate was granted within two weeks of me taking the oath.

As I knew my father's estate would be close to the Inheritance Tax threshold, I took the precaution of getting the house valued by a surveyor, but I would say not necessary for a lower value estate.

mushymatt

thanks everyone for the advice - Going to give it a go myself I think. Got to be better than spending £1-2kish to get someone else to do it

HHarry

Matt,

Jst doing the same thing for my Aunt. Similarly some cash in the bank, and a property.

It really hasn't been all that bad. Take your time, read up on it, ask questions, it'll be fine.

Tuesday_Tenor

I'm assuming the will names you, or you and sibling, as Executor(s)? You haven't explicitly said that, though it's implied in your post.

I've done it twice, for estates similar to the one you describe, though with more different accounts and pensions..

The Guidance Notes to go with the IHT form look rather daunting. They have to cover all sorts of rare things. As it's the first time you've done this, go through the Notes crossing out all the sections that don't apply to this estate. You will cross out about 80% of the notes, leaving a mere 20% to refer to when filling in the form. This will reassure you about the scale of the task: it's not as big as it might appear at first.

The only time constraint would be that IHT needs to be paid within 6 months. As the estate is under the IHT threshold, this isn't applicable, so you can take as long as you need.

Also, as the estate is under the IHT threshold, values won't need to be super-accurate, and can be estimated. The grant of probale document will probably 'round up' the overall value a bit and you swear that it is 'not more that £xxx,xxx'. Even if your estimates turn out to be quite inaccurate (like the house sells for more than expected), you still only have to inform HMRC of the difference IF it takes the estate over the IHT threshold.

In practice:
- You've already done the 'donkey work' of identifying the elements of the estate (which you'd have to do for the solicitor anyway)
- Even taking it slowly, you will complete the task sooner than a solicitor. For you it will be a particular focus, and if any hiccups (like someone failing to respond) do occur, you will address them fairly promptly. For the solicitor it is one piece of work among many, that they only look at once a month, so hiccups don't get noticed or dealt with promptly.
- You will save the estate (i.e. ultimately yourselves) a few thousand pounds.
- You always have the option of consulting a solicitor if something arises that is beyond your ability to deal with. That would still be cheaper than handing the whole task over to a solicitor. [Such an issue sound very unlikely for the estate you describe]

Just ask on here if there's anything you don't understand.

Go for it!

Tuesday_Tenor

Actually, on re-reading your post it is possible that the house and cash together might be close to the INDIVIDUAL IHT tax threshold.

However, married couples have an allowance of £325K EACH. Any allowance not used up by the first to die, gets passed to the estate of the second to die. So the IHT threshold for your mother's estate MIGHT be as much as £650K. It will be important to know what happened to your father's estate, which could be one of several scenarios:

Varying from:
- Everything was jointly owned, so passed straight to the survivor, your mother. There was no 'estate' as such, no probate was needed at all, no IHT was payable, so the whole £325K of your father allowance is avalable to your mother's estate.

to
- Your father left a considerable estate on which a large amount of IHT was paid so leaving no, or little, allowance to be put towards your mother's estate.

So you will need to find out what happened when your father died: Did he leave an estate? Did it go to probate? Was any IHT paid?

FreeBear

I did probate for my mum's estate last year - Not difficult at all, and it was well under the IHT threshold. When it came to valuing the house, I looked at similar properties in the same area that had been sold recently. Took an average, and then knocked a few thousand off to reflect the fact it needed a makeover & repair.

If you think you might be close to the IHT threshold, get a couple or three estate agents to give a valuation - If it takes you up to or above the IHT threshold, get a proper valuation done by a RICS surveyor.