After receipt of Grant of Probate

SLGibson

Hi all


This is my first post and I'm hoping somebody will be able to provide me with an answer to what I think you may find is quite a simple question! Here goes..............


My FIL is the Executor named in his mothers Will. Myself and my husband have helped him in submitting an application for probate online and posted the original Will, death certificate etc only yesterday. I understand that he should be in receipt of the Grant of Probate within 20 days time from when the documents are received at the office.


My husbands Grandmother has/had one Natwest bank account, no other assets, no house to sell, no debts etc etc. The bank account contains £164,000. The Will states that each of her four grandchildren (one being my husband) are beneficiaries and will receive £25,000 each, leaving my FIL with whatever is left (£64,000).


My question is that when my FIL receives the Grant of Probate does he simply go into the bank with it, allowing him access to the estate? I understand that an Executors account is unnecessary - particularly as there are no monies owing or to be credited back to her - so does the money just get deposited into his account for him to then distribute to the beneficiaries? Does this happen instantly or does the bank do something with the Grant which could take a long time?


Everything I read seems to say that it could take months so we're a little confused. From what we can see, unless you good people tell me otherwise, there is a 20 day wait and a 20 day wait only; assuming that the 'transfer' can all be done in one session at the bank once we have the Grant.


Just to explain our need to know; we are about to re-mortgage to build a garage onto our property and this additional borrowing will be unnecessary with the amazing gift left to my husband by his grandmother, bless her. :A


Thanks in advance.

SevenOfNine

"I understand that he should be in receipt of the Grant of Probate within 20 days time from when the documents are received at the office".

Incorrect I'm afraid. The grant will be processed as & when it's processed. There is no guaranteed timeline.

As for the other questions I'm afraid my response would be WAIT PATIENTLY, stop hoping for quick share out. Your FiL's mother has died & the estate won't necessarily be processed at a speed which means you'll have somewhere to park your car over winter without having to re-mortgage your house.

Particularly if DWP need information regarding pensions/benefits which habitually slows distribution of estate funds down considerably.

Owain_Moneysaver

SLGibson wrote: »

My husbands Grandmother has/had one Natwest bank account, no other assets,

My question is that when my FIL receives the Grant of Probate does he simply go into the bank with it, allowing him access to the estate?

NatWest (who have a specific Bereavement Team) will give you an account closure form for executors; your FIL completes that (giving sort code and account number where he wants the money sent) and NatWest will process that - probably within a week or so of receipt.

It will be your FIL's responsibility as executor to settle outstanding debts, benefits and pension overpayments, etc before paying the beneficiaries.

SLGibson

It's really upsetting when you ask a question about something relating to money you have been left (on behalf of my husband) and somebody insinuates that you are being greedy without knowing your situation. I wasn't going to go into great detail about what has happened but now I feel like I need to in order to get an informative response to my question... instead of stabs about putting my car in the garage over winter when actually it's for a sensory room for our adoptive daughter with a Chromosone 15 deletion.

Before I do so; Once you complete the probate application online it says: 'You should receive your grant of probate and a copy, plus any extra copies you’ve ordered, within 20 days of us receiving your documents.' (copied and pasted from page at the end of the application) so you'll forgive me for saying that I understand it takes 20 days! My question was about what happens once the Grant of Probate is received.

My husbands Grandma passed away in March 2017. She had no private pensions, benefits and as I said above, there is just one account, no debts etc. My FIL has done nothing whatsoever to even attempt to begin dealing with her estate because, as he admitted himself 'she's not left me anything so I don't care' (a stupid comment to make when at that point we didn't have any information on the Will). Please don't think that it is because he has been grieving for her because that couldn't be further from the truth. He was so awful to her in fact that that's why he expected she would leave him nothing. My husbands siblings are only teenagers - one has just turned 18 to be completely factual.

We were told initially that she had no Will and then, when my husband and I sorted her paperwork late last year, we found a copy of a Will which left the grandchildren £5000 each which we were over the moon about. We cared for her in the final 3 years of her life so it was a lovely thing to find out. On contacting the solicitors who made it, to enquire about obtaining the original, we were informed that they no longer existed and that the 'new' solicitor did not have the original Will. My husband has since been searching for it but kept hitting 'dead ends'. His dad denied knowing anything about the Will and wouldn't contribute to helping try to locate it.

Eventually we found out that a completely different solicitors firm had the Will and when they confirmed they had it they told my husband that there had been an amendment and that she had changed it to being £25,000 per grandchild and that the remainder would go to her only son (my FIL). Once he realised he had been left some money he suddenly became interested to carry out the probate application; but in the meantime he has been awful to my husband and caused a great deal of upset because he says he doesn't agree to what the grandchildren have been left.
He made an attempt at completing the paper forms but eventually admitted that he didn't have a clue what he was doing. At this point (he is the executor) I agreed to help so that my husband and the other grandchildren would receive what their grandmother had wanted them to have.
The side note was that, instead of re-mortgaging (which we were going to do regardless of all of this), if it really is only going to be a maximum of 20 days and there are no hold ups at the bank when the grant of probate is taken in - the main thing I was trying to find out - then it would definitely be worth waiting.

I'd really appreciate some information on what happens when the grant is taken into the bank.

Thanks again.

SLGibson

Thank you so much Owain. That was exactly what I was trying to find out. Much appreciated.

SevenOfNine

SLGibson wrote: »

Just to explain our need to know; we are about to re-mortgage to build a garage onto our property and this additional borrowing will be unnecessary with the amazing gift left to my husband by his grandmother, bless her.

Calling it a garage & asking for confirmation of the maximum number of days it might be before your husband can collect his inheritance definitely gives an 'unpleasant' impression.

SLGibson

You are unpleasant......and wrong about it ‘taking as long as it takes’. As for the garage; It’s on the side of our house and has a retracting door. Most people would call that a garage. I was after facts, not your opinion.

Margot123

It would be unwise for any executor to distribute the estate until a minimum of 6 months from the date of death.

This is so that any debts (and, yes, they do appear out of the blue) can be paid before the beneficiaries receive their inheritance.

You may find the post on here about a DWP claim an interesting insight.

IMO your question doesn't make you appear greedy but perhaps a little naive about the process and timescales. I would have asked a similar question not so long back.

badmemory

Re the DWP & overpayments. There are 2 things that may cause a problem & you may well know the answer to them.



Firstly were the DWP told promptly about her death? If not that may cause an overpayment problem otherwise no problem & I think this would have been reclaimed by now (an underpayment is more likely if she was paid the usual 4 weekly in arrears).


Secondly was she receiving any means tested benefits such as pension credit? If she was not receiving any means tested benefits then there should not be any of the larger overpayments that can occur.


Are you worried that your FIL will not share out the inheritance? Once the will has gone through probate (he'll have to do that to get his share) if you haven't got a copy then you can buy one online.

brewerdave

A further thought -how was the funeral paid for?

Yorkshireman99

SLGibson wrote: »

You are unpleasant......and wrong about it ‘taking as long as it takes’. As for the garage; It’s on the side of our house and has a retracting door. Most people would call that a garage. I was after facts, not your opinion.

Tactless would be a more accurate way to describe the comments. Sadly we see lots of questions on here where potential beneficiaries often display signs of over eagerness and obvious greed. Grief often makes people act in uncharacteristic way. I am astonished that the probate office gave such an optimistic estimate for the grant of probate as it often takes much longer. With probate dealiang with the various aspects takes patience and lots of it are required.