Banking arrangements for joint executors - is this arrangement acceptable?

xylophone

 Hence wanting to keep an account to keep the house running costs separate, as it will need to be funded until that time. 

Pay the expenses yourself as a loan to the estate  and reconcile in due course as I originally suggested?

BooJewels

I might consider it if I could afford to do that.  

AnotherJoe

BooJewels said:

As you say @AnotherJoe - I'm not entirely sure who it is that I'm worried about keeping happy about this.  Does anyone check on such matters - does anyone else even care?  Are there mysterious estate-management Police?  HMRC will have their two-penneth worth up-front with the IHT forms, so apart from his solicitor, who would even know. 

And to the point, who needs to know? As executors its your legal responsibilty to distribute the money correctly, which you obvs are doing, so as long as no distant relatives or debtors pop up out of the woodwork, whats the harm?  As you ask,  "does anyone care?", and the answer is "nope".

And yes, we do get on well enough that there won't be any issues.  We fall out over really stupid stuff, never important matters.

I wondered about the sole executor thing - but in respect of Probate, my sister has access to the solicitors who have the original Will, so I have to print, sign and send the forms to her anyway, to send everything off together.  Not sure there would be much needed signing until a house sale - and we have way too much to do in the house before that's a possibility.  Hence wanting to keep an account to keep the house running costs separate, as it will need to be funded until that time.  Hence I would have just liked to keep the original account, with everything intact but they insist it can't be done.  I don't really want it in the same account as my own household expenses.

So put your half in your until now dormant account, and your sister can do something similar maybe?

 

BooJewels

I've actually now opened a basic sole account with my usual household bank (we decided that an executor ** account wasn't really necessary - it's a lot more of a faff to open and only necessary with big wads of cash) and as soon as my sister and I can visit a branch together, we'll make it into a joint account.  Although I bet she won't feel that necessary and it'll probably stay as it is.

I'll perhaps transfer a small amount over to cover a month or two of DDs for the house and as soon as I've successfully transferred them all over, I'll then close the deceased account.

** Just out of curiosity, whenever I've spoken to bank personnel about this, they always call them 'Executive accounts'.  Is that the correct terminology, or are they just tripping over the word 'Executor'.  I like the feminine version; Executrices.  Sounds a bit naughty.

AnotherJoe

I think they are confused and you are right, executor.

Me and my brother looked into this, funnily enough with Santander but gave up in the end because the bureaucracy was crazy,  and just shared as explained earlier.

Good luck sounds like you have it sorted.

srichards1

Firstly, sorry for your loss. I too am a joint executor for my late mother's estate with one of my sisters. My Mum passed away just after lockdown started. We have just sent off for probate. We have frozen my mothers bank accounts but one of them paid out and we have split this 50/50. We keep the money in separate accounts and pay bills from them as required. We don't need to pay council tax as its been nilled for this year. Also the water company has said we don't pay at the moment as the property is now empty. I don't know if you have contacted any of the service companies yet but you may wish to to help reduce your outgoings? 

BooJewels

Apologies @srichards1 - I somehow missed your reply - it's not showing as updated in my notifications.  Thanks for the condolences, same to yourself, I think you're a week or two ahead of me.  One of my jobs today is to proof read the Probate and IHT forms to send them off to my sister to sign and then she has to get the original Will from the solicitors.

I'd already spoken to both council and water and payments were stopped, because he was in care when he passed.  I do need to contact them again, but both say on their terms that payments aren't due until some time after Probate.  So I'll revisit that shortly, after I've done some of the more urgent matters.  One of the tricky ones will be the power company, it took me about 3 months to get the Power of Attorney registered with them - so I'm not looking forward to that conversation.

I think I've pared outgoings to the bone already, as he was in care and whilst on a good pension, the care cost enough more to eat steadily into his capital, so I don't think there's anything else I can trim.  I've spent the last year already being quite financially ruthless on his behalf.

Savvy_Sue

BooJewels said:

I'd already spoken to both council and water and payments were stopped, because he was in care when he passed.  I do need to contact them again, but both say on their terms that payments aren't due until some time after Probate.  So I'll revisit that shortly, after I've done some of the more urgent matters.  One of the tricky ones will be the power company, it took me about 3 months to get the Power of Attorney registered with them - so I'm not looking forward to that conversation.

You may find that they are better at dealing with death than they are with power of attorney ... and that has lapsed, of course, so no need to mention it when you speak to them (it may confuse things ...)

BooJewels

Savvy_Sue said:

BooJewels said:

I'd already spoken to both council and water and payments were stopped, because he was in care when he passed.  I do need to contact them again, but both say on their terms that payments aren't due until some time after Probate.  So I'll revisit that shortly, after I've done some of the more urgent matters.  One of the tricky ones will be the power company, it took me about 3 months to get the Power of Attorney registered with them - so I'm not looking forward to that conversation.

You may find that they are better at dealing with death than they are with power of attorney ... and that has lapsed, of course, so no need to mention it when you speak to them (it may confuse things ...)

Everything they do seems to be confused, so I don't want to give them any further opportunities.  😁  I didn't get to them today, but can't put them off any longer.  I did get through a lot today though, so I feel like I'm making progress.

BooJewels

If I may ask a supplementary question - doesn't really warrant a new thread, but some might know if they've been through it.

My father passed away 10 days after his last 4 weekly state pension payment - which I understand are in arrears.  After registration, my sister used the Tell Us Once service as soon as she got the reference to do so. His pension would have been due later that week, but was stopped in time and he's had nothing further since.

Do the state pension pay every day right up to death - because he's about 10 days short and it's over 200 quid. I don't want to close the bank account yet if there might be something due in.   I think he was overpaid 2 days of Attendance Allowance as well, but they don't balance each other out.  All the private pension payments are sorted and cheques are coming to me for a couple of refunds, so this is the only potential payment inwards outstanding.