Suitable Bank Account for Large Short-Term Transfer

winterwonderz

My Mother's estate will be wound up at the end of October/early November resulting in the sale of her house.  There are many complexities but the outcome will result in a cash amount after the house sale of in the region of £250k which needs to be placed into a bank account which then enables myself and 2 other beneficiaries to jointly sign to access and remove our share of the funds.  The money would not be sat for a long time but we would need something for a few weeks.  Once the 3 of us had extracted our shares and the account was empty it would be closed down again.  Can anybody recommend something, preferably a high street bank, as a starting point for this type of service?  Thank you.

colsten

You won't find such an account. Ask the Solicitor dealing with the house sale to pay the relevant share of the money to  each of the three of you.

winterwonderz

The solicitor has said that she doesn't deal with that area so it sounds like we will have to get another solicitor to deal with this if the bank account idea isn't an option.

eskbanker

It's accepted practice for the executor of an estate to open an executor account specifically for this purpose, i.e. to hold estate proceeds prior to distribution - searching the forum for previous references to 'executor account' brings up plenty of previous threads, such as this recent one: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6187012/executors-accounts/p1

Does your reference to three beneficiaries needing to sign mean that all three of you have been named as executors?  If so, it'll probably be more practical for just one to open and manage the account rather than trying to find one that can be joint between three people.

If the solicitor is the estate executor then it's her responsibility to distribute the assets to the beneficiaries, so there'd be no need for the arrangement you had in mind....

jonesMUFCforever

The £85k limit by the FSCS can be extended by up to £1 million in circumstances as you describe.
You need an executors account to put it in and then you can distribute when cleared funds are available.

colsten

eskbanker said:

It's accepted practice for the executor of an estate to open an executor account specifically for this purpose, i.e. to hold estate proceeds prior to distribution - 

Yes but it won't offer what the OP wants - allowing 3 people to log in. Quite apart from that, if 3 people held an account together, it would create a financial association on their credit reference files, which may not be desirable.

As it seems there is only the proceeds of a house sale to share between three people, it strikes me as the simplest if the solicitor handling the sale sends the money to 3 current accounts rather than to just one. I can't see how a solicitor would turn down such a simple request. They might charge more for doing so, and would no doubt want the written agreement of all three recipients beforehand, but it really can't be complicated?

colsten

Having said above that you won't find such an account, I remembered there are joint accounts which allow more than 2 account holders. How complicated they are to set up, especially in Covid times, where it's difficult/impossible to get bank appointments, I don't know.

But be aware of the financial association and application for any joint account will create.

Also, there might not be anything to stop one of the account holders to do a runner with the entire account balance.

https://www.which.co.uk/money/banking/bank-accounts/how-to-find-the-best-joint-bank-account-a08by0u6cb9p

xylophone

Are you the executor of your mother's estate?
If not,who is?

eskbanker

colsten said:

eskbanker said:

It's accepted practice for the executor of an estate to open an executor account specifically for this purpose, i.e. to hold estate proceeds prior to distribution - 

Yes but it won't offer what the OP wants....

Indeed, but IMHO it's more to do with what OP actually needs!  They're describing an arrangement specifically to handle distribution of an estate asset, but without any apparent recognition of the role of executor....

winterwonderz

The complexities of Mum's will and a Declaration of Trust in place mean that her property was owned by her partner, but the Declaration of trust, means on her death her partner, myself and my sister (her daughters) receive a third each of the proceeds of sale.  Myself and my sister are executors of the will along with our partners.  My mothers partner is not.  The solicitor dealing with the execution of the Declaration of Trust and house sale has said she will not deal with the distribution of the monies.  My sister doesn't want the expense of a second solicitor to do this so has asked me to research getting a bank account for the solicitor to pay into that we distribute ourselves.  I am concerned about the 'account linking' as my sister and her husband have a company going through liquidation at the moment.  I also think it will be a whole heap of hassle to set up a 3 signatory bank account at the moment just for the sake of a couple of weeks.  I feel that a solicitor is possibly the best and only way.

Thrugelmir

How are you dealing with the other financial aspects of your late mothers estate without an executors bank account in place?