What assets to declare?

PilotM

My father recently passed away and I’m trying to deal with probate on behalf of my mother. My question relates to valuing assets and which assets need to be considered. The major asset is the house, which is held as “Joint Tenants” and worth around £900K. And then we have:

Furniture (5 bedroom house but nothing of any significant value)
Clothing
Watches circa £1200
Cameras circa £200
Fishing equipment circa £300
Bicycles circa £1200
Model railway circa £400
Computer, iPhone, iPad circa £600
MBE medal circa £450
Garage tools circa £100
Workshop tools circa £100

Or have I already completed the task by compiling the list above!!??

SeniorSam

Sorry for your loss.

As Joint Tenants, your fathers half of the home will be automatically passed to your mother. If your father left his assets to your mother, possibly by a Will, then you need not worry about this, as all the assets will be valued when she eventually dies. In any event, when considering values of anything, consider what someone else may pay for them as a maximum as you may well be over valuing some items.
Sam

Keep_pedalling

I would just itemise items over £1000 individually, and lump the rest together as household effects.

4leafclover_2

I'd take the advice above.
I was told by the probate solicitor that they are mainly looking for something significant - cars, boats, planes, antiques, paintings and collections of valuables, and its not insurance value or sentimental value but general resale value. Everything else just goes down as a group of household items.
Once many household things are out of the box, you can get most of them on freecycle ..

Yorkshireman99

PilotM wrote: »

My father recently passed away and I’m trying to deal with probate on behalf of my mother. My question relates to valuing assets and which assets need to be considered. The major asset is the house, which is held as “Joint Tenants” and worth around £900K. And then we have:

Furniture (5 bedroom house but nothing of any significant value)
Clothing
Watches circa £1200
Cameras circa £200
Fishing equipment circa £300
Bicycles circa £1200
Model railway circa £400
Computer, iPhone, iPad circa £600
MBE medal circa £450
Garage tools circa £100
Workshop tools circa £100

Or have I already completed the task by compiling the list above!!??

You can’t pick and choose what items you include in the valuation. Reasonable estimates are allowed. The concept that you can omit some items from the overall value is simply untrue.

Keep_pedalling

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

You can’t pick and choose what items you include in the valuation. Reasonable estimates are allowed. The concept that you can omit some items from the overall value is simply untrue.

We are not talking about omitting anything but lumping low value items together. If you had to document every single chattel the list would be pages long, and it is not nessasary to do so.

getmore4less

All assets need to be included.
for guidance-
IHT404
IHT407
and the relevant sections of
IHT400 notes


In some cases it is worth identifying individual items as it creates a data point for the future but nothing there would warrant that.

household is fine with sensible guess, if there are any hand me downs you may want to check now as they may be significant vlaue even though they don't look it.

personal belonging only two stand out.
Watches circa £1200
Bicycles circa £1200

if there is one that is significant value I would consider itemising but if it well be exempt(passing to mum) anyway I would not.

if any item is mentioned in the will and not exempt like I give my bikes to my grandkids then they probably should be valued as they reduce the transferable nil rate band.

NOTE that IHT407 refers you to any contents insurance

As your mums estate will likely be close/over IHT nil rate band and a bit of IHT planning may be sensible.

PilotM

Thank you all. That gives me a clear way ahead although I am now about to post a new question relating to a "Discounted Gift Plan/Discretionary Trust"!!

SeniorSam

Awaited with interest!

Yorkshireman99

PilotM wrote: »

Thank you all. That gives me a clear way ahead although I am now about to post a new question relating to a "Discounted Gift Plan/Discretionary Trust"!!

Do what you have been advised and get paid for professional advice from a trust specialist I.e. a STEP member. On an issue like this you just cannot afford rely on advice from a new group.