Inheritance and DWP

Ammah45

Hi all,

I am new here with a question regarding inheritance which I hope some of you can help answer.

My father passed away early this year leaving what little he had in his bank account to me as his sole heir. He had no other assets other than his bank account. At the time I was so distraught that I couldn't think about inheritance issues and the solicitor who helped my dad write his will contacted me saying I shouldn't worry etc and that they look after everything. I then signed off an agreement to let them handle probate. I just didn't want to deal with that at the time.

It took months for the probate to be granted and the bank have now released the funds to the solicitor and closed the account. But the solicitor now tells me that they have to inform DWP to ensure that my father was not receiving more money than he should have been and they can't release the funds until they have heard from DWP. My father was disabled and received pension credits, he was being assessed for his pension and any additions regularly. So I am quite annoyed with this delay. We are talking about a total sum of 20K left behind (god knows how much the solicitor will charge for their "services", or how many hours they claim to have worked on the case).

Anyway, I am wondering how likely it is for DWP to claw back everything they paid my father over the years. Would they have any grounds? The solicitor doesn't commit to anything and just says we have to wait and see. I have a feeling that the solicitors have cocked this up for me. Do they even have the right to withhold the funds while they hear back from DWP? 

Any advice will be much appreciated.  


  

Keep_pedalling

Sorry to say this but you made a terrible mistake letting the solicitor deal with such a small estate. It is highly unlikely that probate was even needed for a small cash only estate as most banks will have significantly higher limits than £20k that they will pay our without a grant of probate.

As for the DWP they will have have visibility of the probate records, and although it is unlikely that there will be anything to pay back the solicitor is covering their backside in case they do.

Which bank was his money in? If that money could have been released without probate, my complaint against the solicitor would be that they have gone through probate creating unnecessary delay and expense.  

jlfrs01

Firstly, my condolences for your loss - my father passed away in February 2021 and I've been through the whole Probate process as an Executor of his Will.
As you've already found, Probate is a long and arduous process. To answer your question about the DWP. Your Solicitor will have contacted them and provided a copy of the Death Certificate and/or Grant of Probate. My experience in dealing with the DWP is they were incredibly slow to respond but in terms of what they'll possibly ask to be repaid it should only be any monies they paid as pension credits after his death.
You or your Solicitor should be able to work this out quite quickly by looking at your father's bank statements (it will be cheaper if you do this), to see if he had any money credited to his account after he passed away. If so, your Solicitor can keep some of the Estate on retainer to send the DWP when they eventually deem to get in touch. It's probably wise to top this up just in case other debts come in late. 
If your Solictor agrees, there should be no reason why they then can't finalise the Estate accounts and pay the monies out, minus their costs. I'm assuming they have done all the announcements so anybody who had a claim on your father's Estate will have had a chance to come forward or forfeit any claim.

In terms of costs the Probate process itself isn't overly-arduous, the bulk of your Solicitor's time will have been spent in catering for debtors and writing to interested parties such as the DWP, utility companies and Banks, plus putting together a copy of the Estate Accounts. I think you can expect a bill in the region of low-mid 4 figures but that's a guesstimate based on my own experience.

p00hsticks

jlfrs01 said:

My experience in dealing with the DWP is they were incredibly slow to respond but in terms of what they'll possibly ask to be repaid it should only be any monies they paid as pension credits after his death.
You or your Solicitor should be able to work this out quite quickly by looking at your father's bank statements (it will be cheaper if you do this), to see if he had any money credited to his account after he passed away. If so, your Solicitor can keep some of the Estate on retainer to send the DWP when they eventually deem to get in touch. 

While your experience might be correct for non-means tested benefits such as State Pension or Attendance Allowance, where the only overpayment is likely to be just that made after after the person's death, the OP refers to Pension Credit. This is means tested, and it is possible, if it come to light after the recipients death that they had savings or income that they hadn't declared to DWP on their application, that DWP can demand that all payments are repaid if there is money on the estate to do so.

 That is a worst case scenario, and it doesn't sound as if it would apply here, but the solicitors are probably correct in not wanting to distribute the estate until DWP have confirmed that they are satisfied that the claim was correct and the deceased wasn;t overpaid.

Ammah45

Thanks everyone for your replies. The money was actually closer to 40K not 20. That was a typo. But it's still small. 
My father was being assessed regularly by DWP and was in a care-home for the last couple of years. He was assessed for that too and paid for it. 

I am annoyed that the solicitor seems to be kicking a hornet's nest. Without them bringing attention to this, the DWP would never look into this. They are supposed to be working on my behalf, but I feel that they are working against me. 

As for their fees, they charge £260 per hour. I doubt they spent more than 10 hours on the case. He said to me it usually costs between 2-6K depending on the size of the state but as ours is so small, then it should be towards the lower end. 

I wonder if I could legally instruct them to pay out the funds and sign something to say I take the responsibility if DWP come knocking. 

p00hsticks

Ammah45 said:

Without them bringing attention to this, the DWP would never look into this. 

I think you're wrong there - posts on these boards suggest that DWP routinely do look into whether benefits have been claimed correctly whenever someone has died, even if it takes them a while. They get notified automatically both when the death is first registered and (I strongly suspect) when a grant of probate is issued, so if they haven't  been in touch with the executors already then they are almost certain to do eventually. 

It sounds as if the solicitor is trying to hurry things along by proactively getting in touch with DWP. 

retiredbanker1

OP this happened when my mother died - as soon as Probate was granted a letter from DWP asking for all kinds of information because she was getting Pension Credits.
First of all don't panic - there is every chance that your father had an assessment from DWP within the last 15 years or so. If you could find information about this - great : just show them this.
The importance of this assessment is that once undertaken and found at the time that everything was ok - he did not have to inform the DWP of any savings for ever!
If you do not have any paperwork then ask them for a SAR  covering your father's history with them.

Like others have stated you did not really need a solicitor - and I have to ask which bank the account was held with?
I ask because a lot of the high street banks now have a limit of £50k before requiring Probate - the bank may have paid out without it. 
If they had paid out then the DWP would not have been any the wiser - you may have some questions for your solicitor - you may end up complaining about his actions?

retiredbanker1

Just wanted to add do not pay anything to get bank statements that the DWP will inevitably ask for - until you have received the SAR documents.

jezebel

Ammah45 said:

Thanks everyone for your replies. The money was actually closer to 40K not 20. That was a typo. But it's still small. 
My father was being assessed regularly by DWP and was in a care-home for the last couple of years. He was assessed for that too and paid for it. 

I am annoyed that the solicitor seems to be kicking a hornet's nest. Without them bringing attention to this, the DWP would never look into this. They are supposed to be working on my behalf, but I feel that they are working against me. 

As for their fees, they charge £260 per hour. I doubt they spent more than 10 hours on the case. He said to me it usually costs between 2-6K depending on the size of the state but as ours is so small, then it should be towards the lower end. 

I wonder if I could legally instruct them to pay out the funds and sign something to say I take the responsibility if DWP come knocking. 

Ammah45 

I am annoyed that the solicitor seems to be kicking a hornet's nest. Without them bringing attention to this, the DWP would never look into this. They are supposed to be working on my behalf, but I feel that they are working against me. 

You do understand that as executor or administrator they are liable for fraud if they don't follow due process?

It's a legal requirement to make reasonable attempts to contact creditors and debtors to settle an estate.

If you feel they are not working with you then you can of course pay what you owe them to date and instruct someone else or take over the rest of the estate

BooJewels

I can reiterate what others have already said about how the DWP respond - my aunt died earlier this year and within days of Probate being granted, I had a form to complete from the DWP, as she was in receipt of pension credit.  They seem to work on the assumption, that the full Probate value on the Grant document is cash in the bank and that the recipient perhaps wasn't entitled to pension credit. HMCTS only send the DWP a total value, no details. The letter implied we'd potentially have to pay all of her PC back and not to distribute the estate until we'd heard from them.

In our case, most of the probate value was in the house she owned, with a modest amount of cash.  I got that sorted in one phone call and a letter in a couple of weeks to confirm that nothing was due.  If the solicitors details were on the Grant, then the DWP perhaps wrote to them and the DWP are awaiting the forms to be returned to make a decision.

Ammah45

Thanks everyone. The account was with HSBC. I am not sure what their threshold is for probate. But the solicitor said they will have to apply for probate and I didn't know any better at the time.

When he passed away, of course I registered his death and also informed all relevant authorities including pensions through a website I was sent a link for. I don't remember what it was called.

I am confident that whatever he had in his account was from his pension and he had no other assets.   

What is a SAR? The solicitor is dealing with everything so I have no idea.