Which bank account for estate assets?

fwor

Apologies if this is already answered in another thread or one of the many FAQs, but I'm just preparing to act as executor for my mother's estate.

What is the normal thing to do in terms of finding a place to put funds from the estate temporarily before the process is finished?

When my father died a few months ago we used his main current account, but that got a bit messy, as HSBC froze the account partway through the process.

Is it normal to open a temporary account - perhaps with the bank that she had her current account with - or would the personal bank account of one of the executors be just as good?

Keep_pedalling

You really need to keep the money separate from the executors existing accounts. As it now seems impossible to open an executors account, I would just open a new joint account to handle it.

fwor

Thanks - yes, it would not be ideal to have my personal transactions mixed up with those from her estate. I will ask HSBC what they can do for us.

Rodders53

fwor wrote: »

Thanks - yes, it would not be ideal to have my personal transactions mixed up with those from her estate. I will ask HSBC what they can do for us.

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/life-events/bereavement/dealing-with-the-estate/

BUT how many executors and how many residuary beneficiaries? Are you one of the latter as well as the former? Things can be simpler if so.

Larac

My brother who was Executor of my late Mum's will opened up a separate bank account. As her estate settlement took 18 months, he just used to keep an excel sheet up to date with the in and out's of the account, which he shared regularly with myself and other brother.

fwor

Rodders53 wrote: »

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/help/life-events/bereavement/dealing-with-the-estate/

BUT how many executors and how many residuary beneficiaries? Are you one of the latter as well as the former? Things can be simpler if so.

Thanks for this - so they do still offer Executor Accounts. That's odd because I dealt with them extensively when acting as executor for my father, and they never mentioned it at all.

Yes, I am one of two executors, and both executors are beneficiaries, unlike dealing with my father's estate, when neither executor was a beneficiary. Hopefully this won't complicate matters though.

badger09

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

You really need to keep the money separate from the executors existing accounts. As it now seems impossible to open an executors account, I would just open a new joint account to handle it.

May I ask why you suggest a joint account?

As joint Executor, with my niece's husband, recently for my late sister's estate I would have been reluctant to be financially linked to him by opening a joint account:cool:.

fwor wrote: »

Thanks for this - so they do still offer Executor Accounts. That's odd because I dealt with them extensively when acting as executor for my father, and they never mentioned it at all.

Yes, I am one of two executors, and both executors are beneficiaries, unlike dealing with my father's estate, when neither executor was a beneficiary. Hopefully this won't complicate matters though.

Many of us have struggled to find banks offering specific 'Executor Account'. I simply opened a separate account with Santander (as I already banked with them, as did my late sister) and used it only for income and expenditure of the estate. I kept a very detailed spreadsheet covering every transaction.

My co executor reserved powers, which made everything so much easier, but I updated him regularly and offered to scan the statements. He didn't want to see them as he trusted me completely. I also updated both beneficiaries regularly.

When the estate was finalised, I sent copies of the spreadsheet to both beneficiaries and offered them the chance to view all the supporting documents. Again, they declined.

Gers

Jumping onto the back of this thread... I am the only beneficiary and executor of my DM's estate (elderly and failing).

Will I need a separate account when the time comes?

Thanks

GeeJay

Having just done probate for my late uncle, Lloyds had no problem opening an account for me, it is designated as follows: My Name - Executor of Deceased's Name. It may have helped that both my uncle and I had accounts with Lloyds. It was one of their "Classic" accounts, so no complications with interest being paid.

badger09

Gers wrote: »

Jumping onto the back of this thread... I am the only beneficiary and executor of my DM's estate (elderly and failing).

Will I need a separate account when the time comes?

Thanks

If you will need to apply for Probate, then I think its easier to keep everything separate, even though it will eventually all go to you.

GeeJay wrote: »

Having just done probate for my late uncle, Lloyds had no problem opening an account for me, it is designated as follows: My Name - Executor of Deceased's Name. It may have helped that both my uncle and I had accounts with Lloyds. It was one of their "Classic" accounts, so no complications with interest being paid.

That's a sensible solution. So, in fact, that account wasn't really any different form a standard current account. Mine with Santander was similar. I called it 'Estate Account'. Despite having to apply for Probate, none of the financial institutions, insurance companies, utility company etc queried this.

fwor

Gers wrote: »

Jumping onto the back of this thread... I am the only beneficiary and executor of my DM's estate (elderly and failing).

Will I need a separate account when the time comes?

Thanks

I think it will make things easier, because it's not always clear when and how the deceased's own bank account will be frozen. In my father's case it was done in two stages - firstly all payments out were stopped, almost immediately.

This is obviously correct, but then the next stage of it being completely frozen was inconvenient because we weren't told when it would happen, and IIRC it caused a payment into the account to fail.

A separate executor's account (in one form or another) should make the process easier, though of course you need to exercise care that you don't settle debts and distribute assets before the correct stage in the process - keeping an account where payments out are frozen obviously means that that cannot happen.