Probate timescale

Bonkersmad

Good afternoon,
My mother died on 9/9/2021.
Probate was granted on 9/12/2021 and completed on 9/6/2022. Everything has been dealt with through a solicitor. My question is, how long should it take for the whole process to be over once probate is complete? The house is sold and the solicitors already have those funds. Is there a deadline by which beneficiaries should be paid out?

p00hsticks

There's no firm deadline, although you'll frequently hear mention of 'an executor's year', which I understand to be a sort of rule of thumb estimate of how much time it should take to wrap things up (unless of course the estate is complex or, like us, there is property to be sold and you had the buyers from hell).

The soliciitor won't have had the authority to actually complete the sale of the house until they had probate, so it's only a few weeks since then. If selling the house is the final piece of the jigsaw then they'll presumably be settling up any final utility  bills and preparing accounts for the residual beneficaries to sign that they agree to before they distribute the money.

Choirgrl

A couple of questions:
- when did the house sale complete? As p00hsticks says, they’ll need to do a bit of final admin once that has happened?
- are you a residuary beneficiary and if so, did the solicitor give you any information about time line at the outset? It’s the sort of information which is quite commonly shared, but easily forgotten about as you have so many more significant things to think about at that time.

If it’s been a bit of time since sale completion, and you’ve had nothing to indicate the overall timeline, in your shoes I’d be politely enquiring what the plans are for legacies being distributed. Executors aren’t required to distribute before a year from the date of death, but that doesn’t mean they can’t/won’t, especially when the beneficiaries are immediate family.

Bonkersmad

House sale was completed in march. I am joint executor with my brother. Admin accounts are being prepared

Choirgrl

Bonkersmad said:

House sale was completed in march. I am joint executor with my brother. Admin accounts are being prepared

Ah, so you’re asking if there is a deadline by which you need to make distributions to beneficiaries?

In that case, if all the administration has been completed you should make the distributions by one year after the date of death. After that date you would also have to pay the beneficiaries interest on their legacy amounts. You don’t have to wait until the one year mark though.

There is a six month window after the date probate is granted when someone could bring a claim under the Inheritance (Family & Dependents) Act. From what you say, that period came to an end on 9/6/22. Given that, once you have finalised the Estate Accounts you’re good to go. If the Will included pecuniary legacies (gifts of specific amounts of money) and it’s clear that there will be enough money in the Estate to pay all of those, then they don’t need to wait for the Estate Accounts. The same goes for any legacies of specific items, if you haven’t dealt with them already.

Bonkersmad

I heard from the solicitor yesterday. She has requested that the administration account be prepared. It's being held up by eurotunnel shares. 
It's all so slow, i just want it over so i can move on

SiliconChip

Is there a reason why a solicitor is being used? They will be sucking £thousands out of the estate for tasks that you could probably have done yourself (I did the financial side of my mum's estate, she died a month after your mum and I distributed the balance of the estate at the end of March after the sale of her house was completed). Shares can be a slow process but given it's been 7 months since probate was granted that ought to be enough time to get them sold or transferred.

p00hsticks

Choirgrl said:

Bonkersmad said:

House sale was completed in march. I am joint executor with my brother. Admin accounts are being prepared

In that case, if all the administration has been completed you should make the distributions by one year after the date of death. After that date you would also have to pay the beneficiaries interest on their legacy amounts.

This topic of 'paying interest' has come up before, and I'm not convinced it's correct - can you provide a link to support it please?

Who would determine the interest paid ?

And would the executor be expected to pay it out of their own pocket, because often any delay will be because the estate has  illiquid assets such as property which will not in themselves have generated any income / earned interest since the death.

If it were really true that the executor had to pay out interest if they did not manage to distrubute an estate within a year of death, I imagine a lot more would step down from the role......

Choirgrl

p00hsticks said:

Choirgrl said:

Bonkersmad said:

House sale was completed in march. I am joint executor with my brother. Admin accounts are being prepared

In that case, if all the administration has been completed you should make the distributions by one year after the date of death. After that date you would also have to pay the beneficiaries interest on their legacy amounts.

This topic of 'paying interest' has come up before, and I'm not convinced it's correct - can you provide a link to support it please?

Who would determine the interest paid ?

And would the executor be expected to pay it out of their own pocket, because often any delay will be because the estate has  illiquid assets such as property which will not in themselves have generated any income / earned interest since the death.

If it were really true that the executor had to pay out interest if they did not manage to distrubute an estate within a year of death, I imagine a lot more would step down from the role......

I was too broad in my general statement, interest is payable on pecuniary legacies specifically.  Below are a few references - the first in particular sets out the origins of the requirement and has thorough footnotes if you want to dig  into the detail. The interest is a liability of the Estate, not the Executor as an individual, and the rate is that of the Court Funds Office

https://www.step.org/step-journal/step-journal-decjan-2014-15/point-interest

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/trusts-settlements-and-estates-manual/tsem7490

https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/trusts-settlements-and-estates-manual/tsem6074

https://www.co-oplegalservices.co.uk/media-centre/articles-sept-dec-2018/when-does-an-executor-have-to-pay-beneficiaries/

https://www.lawskills.co.uk/articles/2021/09/interest-on-legacies/