House contents valuation for IHT

buildersdaughter

The main thing is that you are not intending to sell items for more than you have put down as value. Sure that wouldn't wash if you knew one of you was making off with a valuable piece.
But furniture is variable - even sought after pieces like Ercol don't always fetch much. I have a Lloyd Loom chair (with provenance) and no-one wanted to pay more than £10 for it. I understand that you should seek to get reasonable value, but you are not obliged to tout exhaustively.

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Is it the value of all things taken together which goes on the IHT form, or only the total value of all items with a positive value.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]For example if you have 1 item which can be sold for £100 but another item which will cost £100 to get rid of is the IHT value £100 or £0.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Someone bidding for both items will offer £0, so is that their value?[/FONT]

Mojisola

Tom99 wrote: »

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Is it the value of all things taken together which goes on the IHT form, or only the total value of all items with a positive value.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]For example if you have 1 item which can be sold for £100 but another item which will cost £100 to get rid of is the IHT value £100 or £0.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Someone bidding for both items will offer £0, so is that their value?[/FONT]

No, the value would be £100.

If it then cost £100 to clear out items, that would be charged to the estate along with other executor costs.

Spelunthus

Unless you are VERY close to some IHT threshhold, or other limit then HMRC are not going to blink at an estimate of house contents as £500, or any other low number. They have better things to do than worry about your Dad's old vacuum cleaner. Of course, if there are significant items of art or jewellery etc. then these need to be valued and itemised.
For my Mother's house I used £500, and gave it away to charity. For FiL we used zero, because the COULDN'T even give it away! (He had seven vacuum cleaners, and eight kettles.....).

Tom99

Mojisola wrote: »

No, the value would be £100.

If it then cost £100 to clear out items, that would be charged to the estate along with other executor costs.

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]Yes I thought that is the way it would work although it does seem rather unfair.[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]By paying £100 to have an item taken away you are effectively improving the value of the remaining household goods..[/FONT]
[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]HMRC's Inheritance tax manual does not touch on the subject really.[/FONT]

MSDtoo

Do I value any household contents when deceased left a surviving spouse? Does have things like an old mobile and laptop which could be classed as personal - but rest e.g. furniture is shared.

JGB1955

When we sold my fathers house (a few months before he died) we

1) got in the local auction house to identify anything worth selling (there wasn't),

2) took as much as possible to the local Hospice charity shop

3) offered the neighbours 'something/anything' they would like

4) took some items to OUR local auction house, 150 miles away, where, after 25% fees, we came away with about £200

5) paid a house clearance company over £700 to clear the rest.

Net value, minus £500.

(To be fair, my brother DID take the LLoyd Loom set of furniture, the chaise longue, the Chippendale writing desk, the 17th Century oak chest but, basically, the contents were worth zero).  If nothing else, it has made me realise that I need to get rid of a lot of the carp I currently live with!

relaxtwotribes

The form IHT 407 asks for details of individual items of jewellery valued at £1,500 or more.  So this gives you an indication of what HMRC is looking for.  In my mother's case she lived in a care home so household items I valued at Nil.  However, her estate was well into IHT so I had her gold wedding band and gold Rolex professionally valued and included them at £415, enclosing a copy of the valuation.  Even though they well short of the £1,500 mentioned.  I just thought that HMRC would question why a wealthy lady would not own at least something of value.