Is an Executors Account legally necessary?

Beenie

Mother-in-law died Jan 2020 and probate granted May 2020. Three beneficiaries (her sons) who were named as executors. Two brothers live in the same town, but the third brother lives at the other side of the country. The bank wants all three to attend interview before an account can be opened, but the  problem is that due to covid, my husband can't go to the local bank to 'prove his identity' and the bank won't do home visits for then same reason. Stalemate.

Everyone in the family trusts one another and we we wondering if we could get round this by the two other brothers opening a simple joint account. Any ideas?

SevenOfNine

The last estate we dealt with had numerous beneficiaries (5) & all estate funds went into an a/c in the name of only ONE of the 2 executors.

Lloyds weren't at all keen to open an executor's a/c, a disclaimer was signed & all estate funds transferred into new a/c in the executor's name.

AnotherJoe

No, its not necessary. My brother and i are on good terms, my mum died, i became the sole executor, (he reserved to make it simple), and we just handled the money between ourselves. Som in my account, some in his we just kept it balanced as it happened (expenses along teh way for example) so there wasn't even a grand totalling at the end.

Then, when her flat was sold (after 2 years!) , i directed the conveyancing solicitor to send half the proceeds to him.

Simples.

parcival

Similar - mum died, me and sister are both executors. I am just collecting all monies in an unused bank account with a simple spreadsheet of income / expenses. Might be different for a more complicated estate I suppose.

macman

No necessary, but then you've got to keep scrupulous records, as suggested above. Much easier to do with a dedicated account, but it does not need to be an executor's account. I did the same, just used an existing  Nationwide account and moved my own funds elsewhere.

xylophone

Relative was sole exor of his relative's estate - there were substantial sums to gather in and distribute between a number of beneficiaries - he would not have been happy dealing with this without an exor account (which was opened with Barclays where both he and the deceased held accounts).

BooJewels

I asked a similar question here very recently.  I've just opened a solo account dedicated for the purposes of the estate (with the intention that my sister - the other executor and beneficiary - can be added as a joint account holder post-covid - but in practical terms, I doubt that ends up happening, as she's happy for me to manage it) and already had private pension arrears etc. paid into it.  When I spoke to the bank they said that a dedicated executor account was almost certainly overkill for my father's modest estate, as they require all executors to attend in person with ID and those accounts are only really necessary with more complicated or high value estates - which ours simply isn't.

As already mentioned, I just keep scrupulous records.  I already was doing as his attorney, so I've continued in the same manner.  Just added a sheet to my spreadsheet for overall estate accounts - money received and money spent.

AnotherJoe

macman said:

No necessary, but then you've got to keep scrupulous records, as suggested above. Much easier to do with a dedicated account, but it does not need to be an executor's account. I did the same, just used an existing  Nationwide account and moved my own funds elsewhere.

You don't need to keep scrupulous records. I kept none.  As each expense was incurred, if I paid it brother paid half to me and vice versa. (Each Of us paid some of the bills, it took two years to sell so there were a fair few)
Hence when the final amount came in from conveyancer, we just split it 50/50 and that was it.