When to open a bank account for Probate, any recommendations?

Uglymug

My mother passed away last April, joining my father who passed a few years earlier. I’m executor of my mother’s will.

I’ve instructed her solicitor to sort out her inheritance tax and to prepare and send the various Inheritance Tax Forms to HMRC and to apply for Probate. He did this about 3 weeks ago.

I’ve given her solicitor estimates of the value of her estate (circa £880K). My mother’s husband (my father) passed away just over 3 years ago, he left everything to my mother. They both lived in a Care Home, their house having been sold for circa £370K about 6 years ago. I’m hoping that there will be no inheritance tax to pay due to their individual allowances of £375K and their house allowance of £350K.

On receipt of the Probate forms I'm going to do the donkey work of collecting all the money and distributing it myself. All the monies are being equally distributed between 4 grand children.

Hopefully Probate will be granted in the next few weeks, I was wondering if, to be ready, I should now be opening a Probate bank account. I think I need to open a Probate bank account because I need a larger banking guarantee than the standard £85K. I hope to take advantage of the temporary high balance guarantee of up to £1M.

I’ve contacted all the institutions involved and they’re all waiting for Probate. The vast majority of the assets are held with NS&I. My mother’s main banking was done with Halifax (I also have a Halifax account). There are also some small funds in Lloyds and Barclays. The rest of the funds are in various building societies and some shares with an online broker.

My initial thought was to open a Probate account with the Halifax, however after my dealings with them since my mothers death I suspect that they’re not really that professional. There’s an account with Barclays with less than £50.00 in it. Should I use this to approach Barclays instead? (I don’t myself have a Barclays account.)

So to summarize my 2 queries are:

1) Since Probate should be granted soon should I be opening a Probate bank account now?

2) Has anyone had any good/bad experience of Halifax or Barclays Probate account service, or can someone recommend any other bank?

Any views on one or both of my queries would be greatly appreciated.

Devongardener

Some people will say that an executor’s account isn’t necessary and to open a separate simple account.  

However you will only get the protection for funds in excess of £85k by using a specifically designated executors account.
I opened one with Lloyds when dealing with my late mother’s estate and they were good, EXCEPT that for some strange reason their executor’s account did not allow online or telephone banking, and no bank card either, everything had to be done in branch. They did issue a cheque book, but when it came distributing the sizeable funds to the beneficiaries I had to go to the branch and had a private room whilst the bank staff processed CHAPS transfers.

It’s also worth considering any account in your name becomes part of your estate, should anything happen to you in the meantime. 

Probate could take some months..

p00hsticks

Devongardener said:

It’s also worth considering any account in your name becomes part of your estate, should anything happen to you in the meantime. 

That shouldn't cause a problem providing good records are kept, because there will be an equal and opposite debt owned by the OP to the initial estate so the money won't increase the size of the OP's estate if they should die before distributing the money.

p00hsticks

I found NatWest quite straightforward, although that may be because I was already a customer of theirs. You start by just opening an ordinary account, and once probate is obtained you can convert it into an executors one. It allows online banking and I got a debit card for it. 

Newly_retired

I just opened a new account with Lloyds, my husband’s bank. I am also a customer, though it is not my main bank. It made payments and transfers easy in the months before Probate was obtained, but it was not a special executor’s account. I could use online banking and had a debit card, like any other. Presumably it did not have protection over £85k, but that was not needed. 

Lloyds Bereavement Team were incredibly helpful, as were RBS.

Uglymug

Many, many thanks for all your replies, it's much appreciated.
As well as the Halifax, I've also got accounts with Santander and HSBC, perhaps I should consider those institutions as well.

kipsterno1

Nat west worked well for me.

Runner_Duck

We used Nat West and it was fine once opened. My brother opened it then I was added to the account.  That seemed more complicated than it should have been, mainly because the branch local to me would not listen to what I told them and just did what they thought, and promptly sent my ID docs to the wrong back office.  They then did the exact same thing with the sealed copy of Probate when we got that.  Once all straightened out we had internet banking, a cheque book and paying in slips.  Some banks and Building socs require one of these to prove it is the correct account.

msb1234

Many banks no longer have executor accounts. I opened one with Barclays but it was a total faff! They needed to see a certificate of probate before they would open it.
As someone has already mentioned, when I distributed the estate eventually, I had to do it in branch but it was very straightforward.

Browntoa

Another vote for NatWest, open the account online, popped into a branch once I had the probate letter and it took 5 minutes to change it to an executor account.

Full mobile app access , debit card that I never needed.

All transfers to beneficiaries directly from the app so full verifiable money trail