Tenants in Common Trust and Probate

Wingnut1001

My wife of 15 years an I both have children from previous marriages so when we bought our current house we did so as TIC. We had mirror Wills made up so that on the first death, the share owned by the deceased goes to their children but the survivor can live in the house till they die (with provisos).
My wife died a few months ago an I, along with one of her son-in-laws are executors.
Along with the house (just valued at £800k) she left a £80k cash saving which gets shared between me and her children. Joint and personal possessions all come to me. Her previous husband died 20 years ago leaving no will so what little estate he owned outright just went to my wife.
I have read quite a bit on the web and now understand that her share of our house is deemed to come to me, being held in trust by me and her SIL till I die, so does not form part of her Net Qualifying Estate for inheritance tax purposes. When I die, it will form part of my estate. I also understand that she can use her previous husband's inheritance tax allowance to effectively cover the portion of her cash savings going to her children. This would leave her own allowance fully intact to pass on to me (along with her Residence Nil Rate Band). Is that all correct?
I've concluded that her estate is 'Excepted' so no IHT400 needs to be completed and am currently doing the on-line probate form and have a couple of questions on it.
1) When exploring the 'how do I claim my wife's previous husband's IT allowance', I read on one of the GOV.UK websites that (in my circumstances) I should claim it when applying for probate. I have completed the on-line probate form to the point where I have to 'commit' and seen nothing about it. What am I missing?
2) When calculating the Gross Estate value for Probate, should I deduct the value of her share of the house since it is going into a trust?

Any answers, help or guidance appreciated. Thanks.

Wingnut1001

Can anyone answer my 2 questions above? They are the only things stopping me from doing the on-line probate application.

Keep_pedalling

It gets a bit complex where there is potentially more than one TNRB involved and there seems to be nothing in plain English that explains it.  My understanding is that the TNRB is only used when the NRB has been used up which would mean it can’t be used in this case, but I have no personal experience experience and could be wrong.

Hopefully someone will be along to give a definitive answer shortly.

Wingnut1001

Keep_pedalling said:

It gets a bit complex where there is potentially more than one TNRB involved and there seems to be nothing in plain English that explains it.  My understanding is that the TNRB is only used when the NRB has been used up which would mean it can’t be used in this case, but I have no personal experience experience and could be wrong.

Hopefully someone will be along to give a definitive answer shortly.

You are right about nothing in plain english...

The government IHT calculator allows me to enter my wife's previous dead husband's unused allowance and reports a net qualifying estate of some £60k (which is the cash going to her children) and then an 'IHT Result - Value of estate before IHT threshold applied' of £0. This implies to me that I can use the TNRB.
However the probate form says only answer the question about transferring a pre-deceased spouse's unused NRB if the net qualifying estate is between £325k and £650k. This implies I cannot use the TNRB.

Anyone else like to chip in?

Wingnut1001

Update

I got probate issued and all is settled now.

Correspondence with HMRC and the Probate office seemed to confirm that I could cover my late wife's bequeathment to her children (the £60k mention previously) with her late husband's TNRB. This would leave me (or my executors) free to use 100% of my late wife's TNRB. It seems though that the authorities aren't to interested in the details until I die. Regardless, in my submissions to them (ie the IHT400), I included a covering letter laying it all out and my expectations! Time will tell but I guess I will never know.