Different advice- Barclays Probate threhold

LilyVla

I found out this week that my husband had £51,500 in his Barclays account. I paid for his funeral which was £5,000. I was told by one advisor on Monday that they'll reimburse me for that cost and given the amount left I would not need to apply for probate.

I was told yesterday by another advisor that my case is a probate case as the threshold was reached on my husband's date of death and they will not take the deduction of funeral costs into consideration.

Is that really Barclay's position? I don't understand why they're giving me different advice everything I called.

I have had to pay for my husband's credit card bills etc out of my own pocket. I have no money.

Will I have to 1. report the estate to HMRC on form 205? 2. Will I have to report the amount of his gross estate on the probate form, too? My husband left everything to me. 

I was hoping that I wouldn't have to deal with all this hassle.

LilyVla

Also, if I have to do probate, do I add the value of my home (previously owned as Joint tenants) and the amount we owned in our joint bank account to my husband's gross estate amount? 

Keep_pedalling

I believe their rather arbitrary threshold is based on the amount held at time of death, so you are probably going to have to apply for probate. The good news however is that you don’t need to do a IHT return just apply for probate which you can do on line. You will need to give the gross value on the probate.

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate/apply-for-probate

Unfortunately too late for you now, but you did not have to pay his CC depts from your own money, they would have waited for probate to be obtained if you had told them that it was needed.

LilyVla

Thank you so much for your reply.

Does the gross value of my husband’s estate include our home which was held under a joint tenancy and our joint bank account? 

Sarahspangles

LilyVla said:

Thank you so much for your reply.

Does the gross value of my husband’s estate include our home which was held under a joint tenancy and our joint bank account? 

If you work through the documents in the link provided it tells you in (almost) plain English how to work out the value of the estate.  It might be less confusing if you get started with that and then come back with queries.  We’ve recently got Probate within a month, it’s not particularly complex to do.

msb1234

What a shame that you chose to pay his debts personally. These should have been paid out of his estate. 

bobster2

LilyVla said:

Also, if I have to do probate, do I add the value of my home (previously owned as Joint tenants) and the amount we owned in our joint bank account to my husband's gross estate amount? 

Yes - these need to be included. There's a section on valuing joint assets here... https://www.gov.uk/valuing-estate-of-someone-who-died/estimate-estate-value

LilyVla

Is there a way I could get a valuation of my home for free? I have had my home for 40 years and have no clue what it's worth. 

bobster2

LilyVla said:

Is there a way I could get a valuation of my home for free? I have had my home for 40 years and have no clue what it's worth. 

If there's not likely to be any IHT payable - could just ask 2-3 local estate agents and take the average.

If IHT is likely to be payable - best to get a RICS compliant valuation from a surveyor (for a fee) - to get the most accurate valuation possible in case HMRC raise queries. But if he's left everything to you this is probably not necessary.

bobster2

msb1234 said:

What a shame that you chose to pay his debts personally. These should have been paid out of his estate. 

In the long term, if the OP is the sole beneficiary - and the estate has enough funds to cover the debts - it's not going to make any difference to her financial position. But obviously paying them now may cause unnecessary financial difficulties in the short term. So it's best to tell creditors to wait.

LilyVla

Thank you all for your advice. You have all been very helpful. I  truly appreciate all your advice at this awful time for me