Clarification on IHT forms

sneedshelp

Hello, apologies if there is a first one, pressed the wrong key.                                                          There are two points following my mum's passing with reference to her estate.                                1. There will be no inheritance tax to pay, when I take account of the allowance available for the Residence Nil Rate Band, mum's property passing to myself as the direct descendant.                   2. The bank has confirmed that I will need to apply for probate.                                                       Could you please clarify which IHT form or combination of forms I will need to complete.               Thanks.

RAS

Did mum have a will? Was mum, married, widowed, never married, divorced?

What is the value of the house, and of any accounts, savings, other assets. Just ballpark at this stage?

sneedshelp

Yes there is a will, and mum was widowed. The value of the house is £180,000, and then all other assets combined £250,000.

RAS

OK. There is no IHT payable as the estate's allowance is £500k,  and you don't need any of her husband's allowances.

Who is the executor of the estate? Are there beneficiaries other than yourself?

sneedshelp

I am the named executor in the will, and I am the only beneficiary.

RAS

That makes things a lot easier.

Assuming your are in England or Wales, I'd suggest looking at the on-line forms to see what sort of information they require. You need an email address. You are much more likely to get problems with paper forms and they can take a lot longer to process.

Set up a separate account for the probate, for the sake of ease of identifying things if there are queries. Start getting smaller accounts below bank's limits transferred there, so you have cash to pay insurance etc. You need probate to effect the change on house ownership, or sell, for accounts above bank's limits, stocks and shares and often for NS&I accounts. 

Keep_pedalling

RAS said:

OK. There is no IHT payable as the estate's allowance is £500k,  and you don't need any of her husband's allowances.

Who is the executor of the estate? Are there beneficiaries other than yourself?

It would be better to claim the transferable NRB from her husband rather than her residential NRB as the latter requires the executor to complete a full IHT return the former will only require the completion of the probate form.

sneedshelp

Thanks.
I have already spent quite a lot of time searching through the gov.uk website, but I don't feel that it is clear regarding which IHT form(s) to complete, in respect of my situation ( I am sure there must be many others in the same situation as myself re. the two points that I confirmed at the beginning of the discussion ). Is it possible to clarify which IHT form or combination of forms I will need to complete ?

Keep_pedalling

sneedshelp said:

Thanks.
I have already spent quite a lot of time searching through the gov.uk website, but I don't feel that it is clear regarding which IHT form(s) to complete, in respect of my situation ( I am sure there must be many others in the same situation as myself re. the two points that I confirmed at the beginning of the discussion ). Is it possible to clarify which IHT form or combination of forms I will need to complete ?

If you can claim the transferable NRB from your father’s estate you don’t have to complete any IHT forms. 

sneedshelp

Thanks to both of you for your help with this. I have since discussed with HMRC and they have confirmed that I can go straight to the probate form, without any IHT forms, as suggested by keep_pedalling.