How complicated is the letter of administration process?

littlemissgem85

My Dad died at the end of May with no will. He owned no property as both my parents and I live in a council owned property. 
So far things have been fairly straightforward.
I've organised his cremation, have used the Tell Us Once service to contact the government departments and used a website called Settld to contact companies about account/subscriptions - direct debits are currently being changed to either my Mum or my names/accounts.
The only hurdle may be Barclays bank - I phoned to ask some questions and was told that if he has more than £50,000 in the bank then I would need a letter of administration in order to for them to freeze/close his account and move the money to my Mum.
We have absolutely no idea how much he has saved and I've been told that a LoA costs £275.00 - the bank have said that they won't divulge the amount until they begin the process of freezing his account.

Does anyone know how long it takes to get a LoA when an estate consists purely of money in the bank?
Is it worth applying for a LoA now or waiting until the bank freezes the account and asks for it.
I don't really want to pay nearly £300 only to have the account frozen and then find that he didn't have that much in it.

RAS

Is there no paperwork indicating rough value for the Barclays account? 

You need a decent assessment of the value of the estate to apply for probate, anyway.

As long as mum does the application, she can use MyHMCTS which takes around one third of the time required for a paper application and is less likely to be stopped. Assuming she is the only beneficiary, because the value is below the limit at which the estate is shared with children under intestacy rules. 

If you look on recent threads, on-line applications can take less than a month, whilst paper applications that are stopped can take many months.

Jon1970

So I've been through the process after the death of my brother, very similar financial situation, very uncomplicated estate with a couple of cars and caravan (which I've already sold due to storage issues). 1 savings acc & 1 current account, I've paid any outstanding debts and funeral costs from my funds, no IHT to pay. 

Like you the bank wouldn't tell me how much exactly was there until I froze the accounts exactly but intimated I would need LoA to do anything with it suggesting it was over their threshold. This threshold was much lower than the bank in your case. The application fee was £300 and not £275. I am 4 weeks and a day into the process having submitted the form and have had the necessary acknowledgments etc but am still waiting on the LoA, because it's a paper based application as it was my brother and he died intestate it appears to take a bit longer (there is a thread with timescales on current lengths that a poster has updated today with graphs) titled Probate - How Long but they still have a target of 16 weeks. The completion of the paper application in itself is pretty straightforward to be honest especially if it's a simple estate and something you can do yourself.

Hope that helps.

littlemissgem85

Thanks both.

So far I've been doing all of the admin as my Mum has been avoiding it all.
At some point she obviously may not have a choice.

I looked in Power of Attorney a few weeks before he died and was told that can take months so was glad I waited.
It's good to know that it isn't actually that complicated when an estate is small so hopefully it won't be too much of a hassle.

RAS

Things are a bit new and raw, so give both yourselves time.

And bear in mind that mum can set up an mail address, and sit next to you when you type the details on the form. Then she reads, queries and hits the button or not.

Jon1970

littlemissgem85 my advice is if a LoA is needed to crack on with it as the government website and form you complete has easy to understand instructions and took me about an hour to do & double check. I'd been putting it off and could have completed it months ago, had I done that it would have in all probability been granted by now and I would be one step closer to finalising everything & putting things to bed.

Brie

Not sure if this would work but.....given that a bank will release money to pay for a funeral can you send them the bill and wait to hear what they say?  It's possible they might respond "sorry, not enough in the account for that" and then at least you'll know vaguely what is there.

Flugelhorn

I think it is odd response from the bank - I helped with an uncle's intestate estate, I went to bank with a death cert and the account number and they printed out a statement for me, checked if there was anything in safety deposit boxes and also gave me a list of standing orders / DDs - in the end we didn't need LoA

Keep_pedalling

Ring Barclays bereavement team. Once they are aware of his death. All his sole accounts will be frozen. Ask them if you need LOA to release the money to your mother. If not they should be able to organise the transfer quite quickly they will need to see a copy of the death certificate and proof of who your or your mother are which may need a trip to a local branch.

when my mother died I msd3 an appointment at the nearest Barclays branch and it was all sorted within 24 hours all that was pre COVID.

Savvy_Sue

They will freeze the account as soon as the death is notified, so it's entirely possibly that it's already frozen. However as already stated, if the funeral director sends the bill to the bank, they will pay it directly. 

And once it is frozen, then they should be able to answer the question of whether they can release the funds to your mother WITHOUT Letters of Administration, even if they won't tell you whether it's £5 in there or £500K. 

BUT just checking, was this a joint account with your mother? If it was, then it will be changed into a sole account in her name. 

One thing to be aware of is the tenancy, and this isn't an immediate priority (as long as mum is in good health) but it is important: was the tenancy in joint names of your mum and dad? If it was, then check with your Housing Officer whether you'd be able to take over the tenancy on your mother's death. If it was NOT in both their names, then speak to your Housing Officer, because arrangements need to be made for your mum to 'inherit' the tenancy. It would be worth asking if you and your mum can both be named as joint tenants in that situation, because that will then make life simpler (assuming you're still there) when your mum passes. AFAIK a tenancy can only be passed on once in this way, which could potentially mean that you are not able to stay there. Unpleasant as it is to have to think about these things when you are already grieving, it is worth doing. 

tls123

Check Barclays have seen the death certificate and recorded it, on receipt their process would be to formalise the death freeze the account if it is sole account they should then advise how much is in it, applying for letters of administration requires knowing how much the estate is worth so the bank should give the date of death value. If it’s a joint account they would just change it to your mum. Each bank has slightly different processes and thresholds for probate/ letters of admin. Their bereavements team should be able to clarify make sure you speak to them.