Letters of Administration and address change for Personal Representative

gelato_cat

If any of you have obtained Letters of Administration (because the person died intestate), naming you as the Personal Representative, and you have subsequently moved house, meaning that your new address doesn't match the one against your name on the LoA, have you encountered any problems when dealing with various organisations to administer the estate?

ie have any of them refused to deal with you because you are asking them to write back to you at a different address from the one on the LoA?

Marcon

Suzey said:

If any of you have obtained Letters of Administration (because the person died intestate), naming you as the Personal Representative, and you have subsequently moved house, meaning that your new address doesn't match the one against your name on the LoA, have you encountered any problems when dealing with various organisations to administer the estate?

ie have any of them refused to deal with you because you are asking them to write back to you at a different address from the one on the LoA?

You can update the details online: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/manage-your-estates-details then use that to confirm the change of address.

gelato_cat

Thanks, @marcon!  I've just had a look, and seems that process only applies to communications with HMRC to administer the tax for the estate.  HMRC don't issue LoA and probate - the Ministry of Justice does.

I need to speak to other organisations, like pension providers, utility companies, solicitors etc.  So registering with HMRC unfortunately isn't going to help.  (Plus you can only register large estates - I tried it and the one I'm dealing with can't be registered.)

Therefore my original question still stands, if anyone has any experience of moving house after being named on the LoA as the Personal Representative that they're able to share with me.

Thanks in advance.

Marcon

Suzey said:

Thanks, @marcon!  I've just had a look, and seems that process only applies to communications with HMRC to administer the tax for the estate.  HMRC don't issue LoA and probate - the Ministry of Justice does.

I need to speak to other organisations, like pension providers, utility companies, solicitors etc.  So registering with HMRC unfortunately isn't going to help.  (Plus you can only register large estates - I tried it and the one I'm dealing with can't be registered.)

Therefore my original question still stands, if anyone has any experience of moving house after being named on the LoA as the Personal Representative that they're able to share with me.

Thanks in advance.

A screenshot of the change would have done the trick, but as you can't register the estate, that's not an option.

It shouldn't be an issue, since PRs (whether named on the LofA or as executors named in the will) move all the time. In many cases you may not need to give a postal address, if things are being done by email. Otherwise you might be asked for proof of your change of address, or if you're having mail forwarded by Royal Mail, all that happens is it'll take a day or two longer for you to receive correspondence. The downside of that last suggestion is that it won't cover items you have to sign for, nor will it cover non-RM deliveries such as commercial couriers.

gelato_cat

I know that's how it should work in theory, and we can all speculate / opine on that, but what I was asking for was people's actual experience of whether or not they encountered problems.

Organisations won't accept a scanned copy of Letters of Administration via e-mail, because they are easily forged.  They need to see an original, because the original is embossed with a seal.  This protects both the organisation and the estate.

Marcon

Suzey said:

I know that's how it should work in theory, and we can all speculate / opine on that, but what I was asking for was people's actual experience of whether or not they encountered problems.

Organisations won't accept a scanned copy of Letters of Administration via e-mail, because they are easily forged.  They need to see an original, because the original is embossed with a seal.  This protects both the organisation and the estate.

Not always - and I've never had a client who had any issues with a change of address midway through the administration of an estate.

J63320

I did this, but with Probate, not Letters of Administration, and it was with one building society. When I got probate for my late husband’s estate, I dealt with everything except a long term fixed rate ISA that he had opened only a few months before he died. Interest rates had risen briefly at that time but were back in the doldrums, and if I had closed the ISA right away I would have lost out on hundreds of pounds in interest. I asked the building society if they were happy for me to leave the funds right up to the time limit for using the PSA, and they were, but I realised that, by then, I would probably have moved house, so I asked them about that too. They said there would be no problem because they had already corresponded with me at the address on the Grant, and they had my signature.
When the time came I had indeed moved, but had no trouble dealing with the account. I filled in the necessary forms using my new address details, signed them and sent them in with a sealed copy of the Grant (which they returned to me).

gelato_cat

J63320 said:

I did this, but with Probate, not Letters of Administration, and it was with one building society. When I got probate for my late husband’s estate, I dealt with everything except a long term fixed rate ISA that he had opened only a few months before he died. Interest rates had risen briefly at that time but were back in the doldrums, and if I had closed the ISA right away I would have lost out on hundreds of pounds in interest. I asked the building society if they were happy for me to leave the funds right up to the time limit for using the PSA, and they were, but I realised that, by then, I would probably have moved house, so I asked them about that too. They said there would be no problem because they had already corresponded with me at the address on the Grant, and they had my signature.
When the time came I had indeed moved, but had no trouble dealing with the account. I filled in the necessary forms using my new address details, signed them and sent them in with a sealed copy of the Grant (which they returned to me).

Thanks for the info, @J63320, and sorry to hear about your husband.

Did you use the probate grant after you'd moved house, with any new organisations that you hadn't dealt with from your old address?  I'm wondering how that would work, eg you might find out about a bank you weren't previously aware of, so you need to contact them for the first time some months after originally starting the admin, by which time you're living somewhere other than the address on the LoA / probate grant.

J63320

No, I didn’t need to. I used to do all our “money stuff” so I knew where all his accounts were; the reason we had the long term savings  in his name was so that I wouldn’t have to bother him for signatures very often! 

But if something completely new came up, the address on the Grant would be incidental; the most important point is that it would be an additional asset that I had not included when I declared the value of the estate. A bank’s usual procedure is 1 take note of the the death certificate and will (if there is one - sorry don’t know what happens if no will) 2 freeze account 3 tell executor (the person named in the will) the value of the account at the date of death so they can declare it to HMRC 4 release funds to executor on sight of grant of Probate. So if I discovered a new account and went straight to the bank with a GoP, they’d rightly be suspicious because, not having previously been through steps 1 2 and 3, they’d know I couldn’t have declared it.
If this happened, I would start by finding out what to do when an additional asset comes to light after probate is granted, and go from there. Since I would be dealing with it from my new address, any updated documentation that was issued would have the new address on it. I don’t know about the process for getting  Letters of Administration, but I assume there must be a declaration of the assets at some point, which would have to be updated.