Am I guaranteed the £ amount which was listed on the probate form (6+ months ago)?

Keep_pedalling

Anonymous868 said:

Hello, and thankyou for all your comments.


To answer them:

• In regards to me sending a LBA to my sister though...
  Unfortunately the process of taking legal action against an executor (as per my research into this process) is extremely complex + expensive.
  It would require me to hire & pay for a solicitior, and instruct them to file a claim against my sister (which had to be made via the high court).
  The claim needs to be comprehensive (thus extremely expensive in billable-hours for the solicitor), but moreover needs to prove that they acted either fraudulently or are mentally-incapable of doing the role.
  
  (Them being extremely slow at executing their duties is not a valid basis to even commence a claim, let alone have any chance of winning) 

Sending a LBA costs nothing and my may just give her the kick up the backside she needs. 

Marcon

Keep_pedalling said:

It sounds like this will was written prior to Oct 2007 when Gordon Brown brought in the transferable NRB. Prior to that your father’s NRB would have been lost on his death if he left everything to his wife, so for IHT purposes wills often had such a clause in to use up as much NRB as possible. Ideally they should have made new wills after the change made the clause obsolete but as they didn’t the executor must still distribute the estate as per the will, which means his sole assets should have all gone to his children as those fell below the NRB. 

This could have been changed by a deed of variation within 2 years of the death but obviously this did not happen so you should have received a 3rd of his inheritable estate. Time to confront your sister and if she won’t talk to you then send her a letter before action giving her 2 weeks to respond otherwise you will take legal action against her.

Much cheaper and simpler route would be to apply for Inventory and Account.

p00hsticks

Marcon said:

Keep_pedalling said:

It sounds like this will was written prior to Oct 2007 when Gordon Brown brought in the transferable NRB. Prior to that your father’s NRB would have been lost on his death if he left everything to his wife, so for IHT purposes wills often had such a clause in to use up as much NRB as possible. Ideally they should have made new wills after the change made the clause obsolete but as they didn’t the executor must still distribute the estate as per the will, which means his sole assets should have all gone to his children as those fell below the NRB. 

This could have been changed by a deed of variation within 2 years of the death but obviously this did not happen so you should have received a 3rd of his inheritable estate. Time to confront your sister and if she won’t talk to you then send her a letter before action giving her 2 weeks to respond otherwise you will take legal action against her.

Much cheaper and simpler route would be to apply for Inventory and Account.

While there's nothing to stop the OP doing that, it sounds as if they may not actually be residual benficaries (although they are inheriting the whole of the estate, the will only actually gave them a fixed amount up to the IHT limit, which happens to be more than the estate is worth), and therefore are not legally entitled to see the estate accounts. 

(This does raise an interesting theoretical question for me though - if several people are left fixed sums of money in a will, but there is not sufficient in the estate to pay them all the full amount, are they then entitled to see the accounts to see the justification as to why they are receiving less than promised in the will ?)

Marcon

p00hsticks said:

Marcon said:

Keep_pedalling said:

It sounds like this will was written prior to Oct 2007 when Gordon Brown brought in the transferable NRB. Prior to that your father’s NRB would have been lost on his death if he left everything to his wife, so for IHT purposes wills often had such a clause in to use up as much NRB as possible. Ideally they should have made new wills after the change made the clause obsolete but as they didn’t the executor must still distribute the estate as per the will, which means his sole assets should have all gone to his children as those fell below the NRB. 

This could have been changed by a deed of variation within 2 years of the death but obviously this did not happen so you should have received a 3rd of his inheritable estate. Time to confront your sister and if she won’t talk to you then send her a letter before action giving her 2 weeks to respond otherwise you will take legal action against her.

Much cheaper and simpler route would be to apply for Inventory and Account.

While there's nothing to stop the OP doing that, it sounds as if they may not actually be residual benficaries (although they are inheriting the whole of the estate, the will only actually gave them a fixed amount up to the IHT limit, which happens to be more than the estate is worth), and therefore are not legally entitled to see the estate accounts. 

They don't need to be a residual beneficiary to apply for Inventory and Account - anyone with an interest in the estate can apply. It's not the same thing as Estate Accounts, where, as you correctly say, only residual beneficiaries are entitled to sight of those.

p00hsticks said:

(This does raise an interesting theoretical question for me though - if several people are left fixed sums of money in a will, but there is not sufficient in the estate to pay them all the full amount, are they then entitled to see the accounts to see the justification as to why they are receiving less than promised in the will ?)

No.

Anonymous868

Hello and thankyou for all the replies.

In regards to the money being held in stock & shares, due to the valuation of them constantly fluctuating, I was under the impression that they would first need to be liquidated into cash, before having their value stated for IHT purposes?


Thankyou for all the responses though.

The reason why I asked this question is because I ofcourse don't trust my sister in the slightest...
Therefore will be extremely dubious that if she ever does pay me what I am owed (as my share of the inheritance), there is a very high chance she will under-pay me vs the amount declared on the probate-grant document, and then claim it's because the value of the funds decreased by xx% between when those amounts were declared to the probate office vs the present time.

Marcon

Anonymous868 said:

Hello and thankyou for all the replies.

In regards to the money being held in stock & shares, due to the valuation of them constantly fluctuating, I was under the impression that they would first need to be liquidated into cash, before having their value stated for IHT purposes?

No. Their value is normally market value at close of business on the date of death. See https://www.gov.uk/guidance/valuing-stocks-and-shares-for-inheritance-tax for more information if you are still unsure.

Anonymous868 said:

The reason why I asked this question is because I ofcourse don't trust my sister in the slightest...
Therefore will be extremely dubious that if she ever does pay me what I am owed (as my share of the inheritance), there is a very high chance she will under-pay me vs the amount declared on the probate-grant document, and then claim it's because the value of the funds decreased by xx% between when those amounts were declared to the probate office vs the present time.

The probate figure isn't the relevant one; it's the value of the assets at the time of distribution, once all formalities relating to the winding up of the estate have been completed, so the probate figure isn't one you can rely on.

As suggested above, there's nothing to stop you applying for Inventory and Account if you are not satisfied. The receipt of a court summons might well be enough to concentrate your sister's mind!

BooJewels

As others have already explained, the values used for Probate are at time of death and largely used to establish tax liabilities etc., not what people might subsequently inherit - at best it's a guide.  I've recently done one and will be doing another very soon and am already keeping track of values for that purpose.

The estate that I've now just completed, the payouts turned out to be slightly higher than the Probate values suggested they might be (resulting in CGT being payable), as we got more for some assets than expected, less for others and due to what the Government did with Stamp duty and Covid lockdown delays, the property sold for a chunk more than we'd had it valued at.  Not to mention the actual costs of managing an estate running up to settling it - I don't think you have a property involved in your own inheritance, but we had clearance fees, utility bills, expensive unoccupied property insurance - all going on a lot longer than envisaged due to lockdowns.  The increase in property prices more than compensated for losses elsewhere.

In fact, if I were to advise anyone, I would suggest being generous with valuations at the Probate stage, rather than trying to keep them low, as this may save you from a CGT bill.  We went with the lower of the two valuations we had, as we thought it was the most realistic, but that decision cost us 800 quid.