Funeral costs/estate value

ConfusedinTN

I am completing the probate form following the death of our daughter. The estate doesn't incur inheritance tax and there is some cash and shares from her child trust fund and another investment we made for her. There was no will. We have paid the funeral and headstone costs ourselves and did not expect to claim from the estate. My questions are:
1) Do you have to deduct funeral and headstone costs from the value of the estate?
2) If you do, and there is not enough cash to cover these costs, would you have to sell shares to recoup the difference? We do not want to sell any shares, we want to pass these to our son as soon as everything is settled.
I have never done probate before so I would welcome any advice. Thank you.

TonyMMM

Funeral costs would normally be taken from the estate, but I don't think there is anything that says they have to be - if you wish to pay for the funeral then that is up to you, and the cost to the estate is £0.

As there was no will, and presumably she had no children to inherit under intestacy (and so you will be the beneficiaries), have you considered making a deed of variation to pass whatever portion of the estate you wish directly to your son ?

Marcon

ConfusedinTN said:

I am completing the probate form following the death of our daughter. The estate doesn't incur inheritance tax and there is some cash and shares from her child trust fund and another investment we made for her. There was no will. We have paid the funeral and headstone costs ourselves and did not expect to claim from the estate. My questions are:
1) Do you have to deduct funeral and headstone costs from the value of the estate?
2) If you do, and there is not enough cash to cover these costs, would you have to sell shares to recoup the difference? We do not want to sell any shares, we want to pass these to our son as soon as everything is settled.
I have never done probate before so I would welcome any advice. Thank you.

If she had a child trust fund, then you have clearly lost your daughter at a horribly young age, which is awful.

1. No.
2. As suggested above, you can make a deed of variation leaving as much of her estate as you wish to your son. 

pjs493

First of all, I’m very sorry for your loss. 

My husband died in the military so the cost of his funeral was paid by the military. There were some miscellaneous expenses that the military didn’t cover such as service sheets, flowers, the wake, etc which I paid for out of my own pocket. 

My bill from the funeral director was quite small so it didn’t seem worth putting it against the estate. My husband left everything to me anyway so as far as I see it, for such small sums of money it didn’t really matter how it was paid for because it didn’t reduce an inheritance left to anyone but myself.  

There is no rule that funeral expenses have to come out of the estate, only that they can. They also need to be paid before any debts so for someone with not much money but a huge mortgage and credit card bills it ensures they get a dignified funeral before their debts are paid. But you mention that your daughter had some assets but as you don’t mention any debts, I assume there were none. 

I think the decision is yours and if your preference is to pay for it out of your own pocket and pass shares, savings, etc to your son then you can do that. Assuming your daughter died without a spouse or children under intestacy rules her estate would be divided between you both as her parents. If you decide to pass this on to her brother then that is also completely your choice. 

I’ve just rewritten my Will following my husband’s death to leave everything to our children. I included some specific bequests to go to each child, but if they decide that child A doesn’t want my engagement ring and child B does, they can do a switch if they want. It’s up to them so long as they are in agreement when the time comes. 

ConfusedinTN

Thank you so much for your help. She  died aged 18 and so has no mortgage, spouse etc. we didn’t know about a deed of variation - will definitely investigate. 

pjs493

ConfusedinTN said:

Thank you so much for your help. She  died aged 18 and so has no mortgage, spouse etc. we didn’t know about a deed of variation - will definitely investigate. 

I’m so sorry for what you are going through. It must be such a horrible time for you all. My husband died in his early 40s unexpectedly and it’s torture for me at the same age facing 50+ years without the person I was supposed to spend the future with, but I can’t imagine what his parents, and you, must feel. We have two children and I just can’t imagine losing one of them. I’m so sorry for your loss. 

ConfusedinTN

pjs493 said:

ConfusedinTN said:

Thank you so much for your help. She  died aged 18 and so has no mortgage, spouse etc. we didn’t know about a deed of variation - will definitely investigate. 

I’m so sorry for what you are going through. It must be such a horrible time for you all. My husband died in his early 40s unexpectedly and it’s torture for me at the same age facing 50+ years without the person I was supposed to spend the future with, but I can’t imagine what his parents, and you, must feel. We have two children and I just can’t imagine losing one of them. I’m so sorry for your loss. 

Thank you, it has been very hard. I also know how hard it must be for you and your children. Thank you for taking time to respond to my post. 

SevenOfNine

I'm so sorry for the devastating loss of your daughter. We dealt with the probate when our adult son Mark died, no Will so it was Letters of Administration though the paperwork is the same, with plenty of help along with the forms.

We paid for everything relating to his funeral & did not claim it from his estate, so the value we declared was his house, car, bank & savings,  deducting just his outstanding mortgage balance from the total. No IHT was due.

There was a huge pension & death in service benefit payment, but it turned out to be outside the scope of the estate & did not have to be declared, our older son was named beneficiary.

Once everything was completed, LoA & estate finalised, we saw a solicitor to draw up a Deed of Variation. All monies to bypass us & go to our grandsons (older son's 2 boys). A DoV can be drawn up yourselves, there's a form on the .gov.uk website, but there was quite a lot of money & we wanted it watertight.

We put it in various savings accounts in their names (minors) & we are trustees. I can't advise on the process for transferring shares, but it doesn't sound like there's a need for them to be sold, just declare the value.

It's all a relatively simple, but utterly ghastly task I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. Totally the wrong order of life. I'm truly sorry. 💔