Professional executor's bill - division of responsibility between legatees

Yorkshireman99

AnotherJoe wrote: »

If she gets a bill, which will be due to their incompetence since this is simply and utterly wrong, the estate pays as said, she can ignore it.
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just ignoring it is never a good idea. It will not go away. She needs to challenge it robustly.

Savvy_Sue

Just wondering here - does the wording of the will become critical here?

I just have a niggle, that if the legacy to the girlfriend is described as 'clear of taxes' - I think that's the phrase I'm looking for - then does that not mean that she gets the house and contents and any fees / IHT are indeed taken from the residual beneficiaries share.

Although, having said that, if there is nothing left in the residual share, I agree it can't be enforced!

getmore4less

Free of taxes has special meaning and even then a beneficiary can be responsible for taxes(some or all) on that legacy if there are no other funds to pay them

There are rules(abatement) on the order stuff gets paid and which assets of the estate get used to pay them.

All costs come from the estate.

Who paid for the funeral?

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A thought does the GF get the house outright or is it in life interest trust for the kids? I know you said it will be sold but worth checking.

Strad

Gf gets house outright "free of charges". I think about £1000 outstanding on funeral but as girlfriend chose to spend the extra she has said she will pay balance - don't know when or how.

Keep_pedalling

Strad wrote: »

Gf gets house outright "free of charges". I think about £1000 outstanding on funeral but as girlfriend chose to spend the extra she has said she will pay balance - don't know when or how.

It sounds like when the will was written he had substancially more assets than he had when he died. Whatever it says in the will she cannot receive the house fee free as it is the only asset.

It would be in her interest to get the bank to stand down and sort the probate and transfer herself, which she should be able to due at negligible cost.

What is the value of the house? If over £325k then there is IHT to consider as well.

AnotherJoe

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

just ignoring it is never a good idea. It will not go away. She needs to challenge it robustly.

Fair point. Indeed a strongly worded letter to the bank complaining about their level of competence would be in order.

Owain_Moneysaver

Strad wrote: »

Gf gets house outright "free of charges".

That has nothing to do with executor's fees (I think); it means that if there was a mortgage on the house, the estate settles the mortgage debt out of available funds (if possible) and then passes the house, mortgage-free, to the beneficiary.

Otherwise the beneficiary would inherit the house as a specific bequest, but there would still be a mortgage secured on it and that mortgage would have to be paid off by the beneficiary if they wanted to keep the house.

AFAICS if a solicitor is telling a beneficiary (who inherits nothing) they are liable for professional fees when the beneficiary is not, they are committing professional misconduct and should be reported to the Law Society or SRA.

I hope somebody's just misunderstood something in all this.

Brynsam

Might be worth checking if the daughter has misunderstood what was said to her. Thinking she'd been told 10% when the real figure is 2.5% is quite a big mistake. Possibly the bank's solicitor was referring to the costs of the funeral rather than the costs of the executorship?

Either way, OP's real question was surely whether her son, daughter and granddaughter could be charged for the costs of winding up the estate/executor's fees 'out of their own pockets'. The answer is 'no', so fretting about the house and whether or what the girlfriend inherits has no bearing on the original question.

Strad

Thanks to everyone who has replied. I think it isn't a fully qualified solicitor who has been dealing with the estate but over the phone he clearly said the bill would be split four ways and they would be "expected" to pay. If they do actually get a bill then they may be minded to complain to the Law Society. Don't know where she got the 10% from although given the house was in such an appalling condition and will not fetch all that much, all the other fees added to the administration fee may come to near 20 of the estate. All four legatees are getting letters every few weeks basically saying. "no further news" on high quality paper so I guess the solicitor fees won't come cheap.

Brynsam

Strad wrote: »

Thanks to everyone who has replied. I think it isn't a fully qualified solicitor who has been dealing with the estate but over the phone he clearly said the bill would be split four ways and they would be "expected" to pay.

That's a very different thing from saying 'comes out of your own pocket'. It's not an incorrect statement - occasionally some fees for winding up an estate can be attributed to one beneficiary only and they will therefore pay a different 'share' of the fees. Very unlikely any bill will follow, so I think it's a case of don't worry and no action will be needed.