The Great Hunt: Help others if you've been an executor of a will

Mike_from_Croydon

1. Another repondent said it is inconvenient if there is more than one executor. True; they would all need to sign everything. Just because the deceased named more than one executor, they don't all have to accept the job. They can reliquish the role, or better still, relinquish with the right to reinstate so they can change their mind in case of problems. (Therefore, if you are making a will, you might want to name more than one, to ensure one is available when the time comes.)
2. If you can't find the will, make sure you try the Probate Registry.
3. I found no need for professional help from a solicitor. The work is tedious rather than difficult, and you may need to do much of it anyway (e.g. working out who provided the utilities such as gas and electricity, and finding documents).
4.[FONT=&quot] You will need plenty of copies of the death certificate. [/FONT][FONT=&quot][FONT=&quot]You may think that since banks etc. won’t give you the money without the grant of Probate you could wait for that, but no – they need to see the death certificate before they will tell you the value of the estate for Probate purposes. [/FONT]It is helpful to write straight away to the utilities, council (re council tax) and insurance companies [I presume moneysavingexpert will be providing proformas for these?] with a copy of the certificate. Even with things like utilities, you need to know the amount that the deceased was in credit or debit to calculate the value of the estate. You will also need to send a copy of the death certificate to everyone who the deceased had savings or investments with. You can ask for these back once noted, but if you want to deal with everyone without waiting you will need copies for each, e.g. 3 for utilities (electricity/gas, water, phone/internet), 1 for council, 2 for house insurance (if contents and buildings are separate), bank, one for each provider of savings or investments, plus one to keep for reference and emergencies. Obviously you can reduce this by dealing with people in phases, but not everyone is in any hurry to return the certificates to you. You may also be able to deal with some organisations face to face, e.g. banks and the council, and they may be willing to take copies on the spot.
4. Then you will need a similar number of copies of the Grant of Probate to access the money.
5. Unless you are still living at the deceased's address, arrange with the post office for their mail to be redirected to you.
6. The process in outline: [/FONT][FONT=&quot](a) establish how much the estate was worth at the date of death; (b) provide this information (and pay any necessary tax) to obtain probate; (c) collect the assets and pay the debts; (d) pay out the bequests - get receipts for these.
7. Funeral expenses are chargeable to the estate before its value for probate is calculated. The value for probate may include some estimates, and the tax people need to be told of changes to these. However, changes in value after the date of death (e.g. interest, gains and losses in value of shares after that date) are not counted for probate or death duty purposes, nor are such things as fees incurred in selling property.
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egarobar

Last year I dealt with my dad's estate. Two years previously he had had to go into a nursing home and I took over managing his money. The most important thing was having LPAs already in place - and the fact that my brothers and I have a good trusting relationship between us, so between the 3 of us we each took on different responsibilities, and they were both happy for me to do this job - not like some families I could mention!
When dad passed on, I had already found a few websites that explain the process, and one with some useful Excel templates (there were a couple of mistakes in some of the formulas, but I was able to fix those myself). So, I was *prepared*. And I had already been in touch with each of the accounts (banks, etc) in my role as Attorney, and I had asked them what they would need me to do when the time came, and whether probate would be needed. Only one of the accounts thought it might be.
I was therefore able to get the right number of death certificate copies straight away, and then it was just a matter of sending one to each account with a letter (again from a useful template I found online). In the end I decided to go for probate, filling in the forms myself, but in fact I didn't really need to, as there were no major debts, and I had already sold dad's house and stashed the cash in savings. The estate came in under the IHT threshold, so I knew that the taxman wasn't going to be looking for problems.
To sum up, do your research, preferably in advance, compare websites and get the best info, and - providing the estate is simple enough, and you are on good terms with the other beneficiaries - you can do it yourself. But you do need spreadsheet know-how and some IT skills. If it's complicated, I'd get to know your local solicitor - find out if you can do him any favours.

Fullthrottle

Recently joint executor of my uncle's will and found a photocopy of will but no original/certified copy, which became a problem. Original solicitors had long since closed so contacted the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA ) who were extremely helpful .... They actually had all the docs from the solicitors which had been closed in their archive (including my grandparents docs)
As others have said, no solicitor involved until selling house and that was just a conveyence solicitor supplied by the estate agents. Getting probate for one of us made it a heck of a lot easier because one of us could then deal with everything
Some great advice on this forum -wish I had this a year or so ago!

Patcpud

I have been executor and applied for probate twice. Here's my advice -

1. Don't rush things, you will not knock out the forms to apply for probate in 10 minutes. Go on to the government probate website and be prepared to read lots of documents. Don't panic! There is loads of good straight forward advice on the website on how the process works and what forms to complete. Take your time and be methodical. You will need lots of documents to hand to complete the forms so get organised. If you do get stuck don't hesitate to contact the helplines on the website as the people there are really knowledgeable and helpful.

2. It might be worth opening a bank account just to handle the finances whilst you are dealing with the estate - so any money from the estate can be paid directly into it as you collect it and ongoing bills/ expenses can be paid out of it. This is a handy way of keeping track of expenses.

3. The post from PENSIONERKBM offers some good practical advice and ideas - if you can't be bothered to read through it don't even think about applying for probate yourself as it would suggest you don't have the patience needed to get through the process.

4. Deleted_User's post is also very true. My mum worked in a funeral director's and had seen the anxiety caused to relatives over finances caused by people who were not prepared for death. Consequently my mum had a pre paid funeral plan and kept details of everyone she made payments to and all the places she had money saved. This helped me enormously when I came to deal with her estate. Had she not done this I probably would not have considered even attempting to handle probate without a solicitor. Having done it I would encourage others to have a go.

HeatherAlex

...we don't even call it "probate" here.

I became co-executor of my cousin's will with the solicitor she'd appointed. That was helpful as it meant I could deal with many items (at no cost) rather than have him do it. That said, I did find him very helpful, partly in signposting us to services but especially when we (the beneficiaries) decided to include someone else in the will and he drew up a Deed of Variation to enable that.

In Scotland (or at least in Edinburgh), when we applied for the death certificate, they (a) gave us a list of all the people they would be informing through TellUsOnce (eg DWP, Council, etc) and (b) gave us a checklist of all the people we needed to inform. Very helpful.

Tips...

Biggest lesson for me was to make sure someone (preferably executors and at least one family member) has a copy of your will before you die. We spent 3 days hunting for the will as my cousin did not have a copy at home nor any record of correspondence with the solicitors. In the end, we found it by detective work through the Land Registry to find her parents' conveyancing solicitor! Time is of the essence when you want to make sure you know what the person wanted by way of their funeral - fortunately we'd guessed correctly on most counts.

Keep track of what (if anything) you have an auction house sell for you. We should have photographed/videoed everything before it went as we had to chase the auction house for payment for items we knew they had taken but which were not accounted for in their statement of sales/payment to us.

If you can, try to have a chat with the person about their wishes. We gave most of her goods away, although we did sell the more valuable items and added the proceeds to the estate. My mother, on the other hand, while applauding our efforts to find good homes for everything, has told us NOT to give away her belongings!

We got 5 copies of the death certificate, and even that proved a couple too many. The banks, for example, were happy with me producing it in person and they took a copy, so I didn't even have to part with it.

Forwarding mail (obvious, I know) is a huge benefit, especially if the person lives a distance away from you. Persuading people NOT to post things any more was more of a problem - I believe a certain well-known charity is still sending newsletters to her (over a year later), forwarded to one of us on a regular basis :-( Loved the idea below of pre-printed stickers to send things back!

Picking up on a point below, changes in value after death of (say) a savings account due to interest apparently does have to be declared by beneficiaries, even if no IHT is payable on the estate.

spaceaarvark

DO NOT use a solicitor for probate!!


I am currently going for probate on my mum's estate. She owned a flat which I estimated was valued at a little over £300K, had about £20K-£25K in savings, and not a lot else of any real value.
Dad died in 2000 leaving her his share of their house, but he had by then shacked up with someone else (but they hadn't divorced) and we had no idea of the total value of his estate or how much of his IHT allowance had been used up.


I used a solicitor for probate for a variety of reasons:


- He was someone that mum trusted.
- It looked like we might go over the IHT threshold unless we could use some of Dad's, and I thought the solicitor would be better placed than me to sort out that aspect.
- I wanted to get the probate application in before the fees went up in May.
- He quoted a fixed fee, which included arranging the valuation of the property and the chattels.


What a waste of time and money!


Apparently "arranging" the valuations did not mean they were included in the fixed fee - I had to pay for those on top.
The IHT issue was addressed by simply getting valuations that brought the total in under £325K.
Everything else on the forms was answered by him asking me for the information, or making my best guess if I didn't know.


I could have done all of that for myself and saved well over £1K.


Apart from that...


DO get a proper valuation of the chattels by a qualified valuer. The chap who did mine said that probate applications rarely get rejected or queried if you get a proper valuation because "they can see that you are doing the right thing"!

NorthumbrianLad

It can be a bit of a catch-22 when seeking probate - the banks, etc won't (correctly) let the executors access the money until probate is proven, and probate can't be proven until the relevant fees have been paid to the probate authorities.

Some banks - I know of Barclays, but I'm assured there are others - will pay funeral costs & probate costs from the frozen bank account(s). This saves the executors having to possibly obtain a loan.

Jfph

Agree with most of the advice posted here. My father died very suddenly and while his will was in order (he had made sure of that as my mother had dementia), we had no list of assets, bank accounts or passwords. Putting these together required a lot of looking through old paperwork, a lot of tearing hair out and a few inspired guesses (for passwords). Making this list (and making sure they're aware of it) is one of the best things you can do for your loved ones. Also, don't forget about online accounts - my father was no digital native but he had managed to accrue a fair list of online accounts, some of which had his credit card details. Some of these we only found out about once we'd managed to access his e-mail. Most accounts I could close by sending them a copy of the death certificate, but some are very difficult to work with. My biggest piece of advice to anyone: have those difficult conversations with your parent, partner or child. Let them know what you have, where it's kept and how you want it to be handled. My Dad was a financially savvy person and if he'd known his date of death he'd never have left us with the mess we ended up having to sort out. It can happen to anyone.

Keep_pedalling

NorthumbrianLad wrote: »

It can be a bit of a catch-22 when seeking probate - the banks, etc won't (correctly) let the executors access the money until probate is proven, and probate can't be proven until the relevant fees have been paid to the probate authorities.

Some banks - I know of Barclays, but I'm assured there are others - will pay funeral costs & probate costs from the frozen bank account(s). This saves the executors having to possibly obtain a loan.

A lot of banks will give out a surprising large amount of money without probate. Barclays, for instance, will pay out to the executor if the total amount held with them is under £30,000. You need to present them with proof of ID, death certificate and the will. You also have to sign an indemnity form.

Patches3

Do not use a solicitor for probate, unless the will is complicated and there are a lot of assets.

I was recently one of two executors on a will. Initially we arranged to see a solicitor in order to obtain probate which we needed to change the name on the deeds of the house. There were no other assets left of any value. The solicitor gave us a complicated explanation of the probate process and asked us for over £700 there and then. Despite feeling pressurised and wanting it all over with asap we declined and said we would think about it.

We waited and carried out research on the internet. We decided to try for probate ourselves, which involved filling in two forms, printed off the internet, and swearing an oath at a local solicitors office, which cost £10 -. The probate application cost £215 - and was sent off by post. The whole process turned out to be quick, relatively straightforward and cost considerably less than the solicitor would have charged.