Mum has died. We have differing advice from each bank/company etc. Any help appreciated please.

FrankFalcon

Hi all

My wife's Mum died in the last couple of months (without leaving a will) and we are faced with a mountain of paperwork to sift through now.  The credit card ones were easy to cancel because they were all nil owing.  We have rang a few banks, policies and organisations and have had very different responses.  I would be grateful if anybody in the know would be able to offer any constructive advice on my comments (WHICH WILL BE IN CAPITALS).  I have put my own comments in CAPITALS to make people aware that these are my comments/questions.  Some of the organisations have been so amazingly laid back and straight forward, whilst other organisations have been less helpful/more coy.  So, I will number each organisation we have dealt with.  I would be VERY grateful if any of you guys in the know can offer any genuine advice or comments.

1. Post Office: We rang the post office because we found a recent bank statement with a large amount in it. The Post Office operative told us “Send us in a certified copy of death certificate to our address and a covering letter and we will take it from there. 
WHILST WE CAN EASILY KNOCK UP A COVERING LETTER, WE ARE UNSURE WHAT TO WRITE IN IT.

2. RBS bank: We rang them and their operative told us: "The lady in question had 2 accounts, so today I will freeze them now.  You need to complete a form which I will email to you now.  You will need to click on link in the Email I will send and follow the instructions in the link.  If balance is over £50K you will need to letter of administration.  If it is under £50K then you don’t. 
WHAT IS A LETTER OF ADMINISTRATION? WHERE DO WE GET IT FROM? IS THERE A COST?

3. Life Insurance company 1 told us when we rang: “Once you have the death certificate ring back on this number and we can do claim over the phone.  "We will pay the amount on the policy into your personal bank account and you distribute it amongst the other blood relatives” 
WE REALLY EXPECTED A LOAD OF QUESTIONS ETC AND CAN'T BELIEVE IT IS THIS SIMPLE.  ARE THEY JUST GOING TO PAY OUT SO EASY?

4. Life Insurance company 2 told us when we rang: "We need to send you a death claim form.  Your mothers’ next of kin needs to complete it and send it back to us with a copy of the death certificate.  We are not able to confirm anything or any amounts until we have seen a death certificate”. 
SO, THIS COMPANY WAS A LITTLE LESS FORTHCOMING THAN THE ONE ABOVE.  

One thing that has struck me as strange is that never once through every call has the word 'probate' been mentioned by RBS, Post Office or 2 life insurance companies.  We were expecting that word to pop up repeatedly.  Does probate not count when it comes to cash in banks or life insurance policies?

I should add here that the lady's house was owned by her and will be worth in excess of £1150,000.

I should also add in here that I have heard loads of different comments/anecdotes and advice from different friends and family.  Amongst them...

"Don't let a solicitor do your probate.  It's very easy - if you have the time - and saves you a few grand"  conversely "Make sure you get a good solicitor for probate.  They're not expensive and they will do it quicker than you can".  Another... "My dad's probate took 2 years"

Any advice friends?

Hoenir

If you are uncertain as to what to do and aren't comfortable with administrative matters seek advice. By working with a solicitor and performing a lot of the leg work it's possible to minimise the fees involved. 

poppystar

Since there is no Will it is Letters of Administration that you will need to apply for if required rather than a Grant of Probate. This will probably be why you have not heard mention of probate if you have already explained there is no Will. They are effectively the same thing, giving authority to deal with the deceased affairs. There is a strict order of people entitled to apply for Letters of Administration. 

Given the value of the estate being in excess of £1m you will have to do a full IHT return before applying for the Letters of Administration.  

Savvy_Sue

First suggestion would be that in any future phone calls you ask for the Bereavement Dept, as they are the ones used to dealing with your situation. 

1. Post Office
I think before writing to them I would phone again, ask for bereavement dept and check whether the funds can be released immediately, or whether Letters of Administration will be required (more anon). If it's more than £30K in the account, I believe you'll need LofA. See https://www.postoffice.co.uk/social-responsibility/help-with-bereavement - in fact that page seems to offer an online form. It does confirm that they'll pay for the funeral direct from that account if that would be helpful. 

If you do need to write a covering letter, something along these lines should do the job:

Dear Madam / Sir
Further to our phone conversation on DATE, I enclose a death certificate for my mother, Mrs Josephine Bloggs. She died intestate, and held a bank account with you, SORT CODE and A/C NO. [If less than £30k in account] I would be grateful if you would release the funds to me, as her nearest relative. [If more than 30k in account] We will be applying for Letters of Administration as soon as possible, and would welcome confirmation of the closing balance on this account. 
Yours faithfully
YOUR WIFE

Basically, you're telling them who you are, why you're writing, what you're enclosing, and what you want them to do. Giving a phone no. / email address may be useful, but they may or may not use it. As with an email attachment, do remember to enclose anything you say you're enclosing ... and sealing the envelope won't remind you to do this (I've been saved a few times by the message "you mention an attachment but there isn't one" from my email provider!)

2. RBS and Letters of Administration
If your MiL had left a will, then the Executor(s) named in that will would apply for Probate. In the absence of a will, MiL has died Intestate, and the functional equivalent of probate is applying for Letters of Administration. In this case, the Executor's function is performed by an Administrator, which is normally the nearest relative - and there's a pecking order for who can do this. 

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/apply-for-probate-by-post-if-there-is-not-a-will/how-to-apply-for-probate-by-post-if-there-is-not-a-will is where you need to go. Assuming there is no living spouse or civil partner, it is the children who inherit, and one (or possibly more?) of them is first in line to apply. 

3. and 4. Life insurance
Yes, it can be that easy, but not always - may depend on the type of policy, who the beneficiaries are, and whether the amount is fixed or varies as time goes by. 

As for solicitors or not: how many siblings, and are they all on good terms and sensible people who won't be demanding their inheritance next week?  In that case, I'd want to agree who had the time and patience to apply for LofA, and support them in getting on with it. If there are troublemakers / estranged siblings, I'd probably hand over to a solicitor, being prepared to do some legwork to reduce their costs (you really don't want to pay solicitors to sift through all the paperwork). 

You could also consult a solicitor on specific areas, eg how much IHT may be due. With a house valued at over £1m, there will be some, but up to £1m may well be free of IHT - I'll let someone else explain how that works. 

Sarahspangles

FrankFalcon said:

I should also add in here that I have heard loads of different comments/anecdotes and advice from different friends and family.  Amongst them...

"Don't let a solicitor do your probate.  It's very easy - if you have the time - and saves you a few grand"  conversely "Make sure you get a good solicitor for probate.  They're not expensive and they will do it quicker than you can".  Another... "My dad's probate took 2 years"

Any advice friends?

Acting as an Executor isn’t difficult but you do need to be methodical. That means doing things in the right order by the required cut off dates after the person died, and keeping good records. There are several places that walk you through the process which makes it less likely you will get into difficulties. I would say the best (having used this) is currently gov.uk because it’s most up to date. Beware googling and finding out of date information on other pages.

Letters of administration are what you get issued with if the person died intestate and you apply successfully for probate. It’s broadly the same as being named Executor in a Will and getting probate through that process. This is the process where someone is intestate.

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate/if-theres-not-a-will

From there, if you go back to the first page (the link at the top) of What to Do when Someone Dies you can make a note of what you have done already. That will be useful whether or not you use a solicitor.

If it wasn’t a typo and the house is worth over £1m it’s likely there will be inheritance tax due soon so you might want to consider using a solicitor simply to avoid the risk of getting into trouble with HMRC

poseidon1

FrankFalcon said:

Hi all

My wife's Mum died in the last couple of months (without leaving a will) and we are faced with a mountain of paperwork to sift through now.  The credit card ones were easy to cancel because they were all nil owing.  We have rang a few banks, policies and organisations and have had very different responses.  I would be grateful if anybody in the know would be able to offer any constructive advice on my comments (WHICH WILL BE IN CAPITALS).  I have put my own comments in CAPITALS to make people aware that these are my comments/questions.  Some of the organisations have been so amazingly laid back and straight forward, whilst other organisations have been less helpful/more coy.  So, I will number each organisation we have dealt with.  I would be VERY grateful if any of you guys in the know can offer any genuine advice or comments.

1. Post Office: We rang the post office because we found a recent bank statement with a large amount in it. The Post Office operative told us “Send us in a certified copy of death certificate to our address and a covering letter and we will take it from there. 
WHILST WE CAN EASILY KNOCK UP A COVERING LETTER, WE ARE UNSURE WHAT TO WRITE IN IT.

2. RBS bank: We rang them and their operative told us: "The lady in question had 2 accounts, so today I will freeze them now.  You need to complete a form which I will email to you now.  You will need to click on link in the Email I will send and follow the instructions in the link.  If balance is over £50K you will need to letter of administration.  If it is under £50K then you don’t. 
WHAT IS A LETTER OF ADMINISTRATION? WHERE DO WE GET IT FROM? IS THERE A COST?

3. Life Insurance company 1 told us when we rang: “Once you have the death certificate ring back on this number and we can do claim over the phone.  "We will pay the amount on the policy into your personal bank account and you distribute it amongst the other blood relatives” 
WE REALLY EXPECTED A LOAD OF QUESTIONS ETC AND CAN'T BELIEVE IT IS THIS SIMPLE.  ARE THEY JUST GOING TO PAY OUT SO EASY?

4. Life Insurance company 2 told us when we rang: "We need to send you a death claim form.  Your mothers’ next of kin needs to complete it and send it back to us with a copy of the death certificate.  We are not able to confirm anything or any amounts until we have seen a death certificate”. 
SO, THIS COMPANY WAS A LITTLE LESS FORTHCOMING THAN THE ONE ABOVE.  

One thing that has struck me as strange is that never once through every call has the word 'probate' been mentioned by RBS, Post Office or 2 life insurance companies.  We were expecting that word to pop up repeatedly.  Does probate not count when it comes to cash in banks or life insurance policies?

I should add here that the lady's house was owned by her and will be worth in excess of £1150,000.

I should also add in here that I have heard loads of different comments/anecdotes and advice from different friends and family.  Amongst them...

"Don't let a solicitor do your probate.  It's very easy - if you have the time - and saves you a few grand"  conversely "Make sure you get a good solicitor for probate.  They're not expensive and they will do it quicker than you can".  Another... "My dad's probate took 2 years"

Any advice friends?

I note you are doing your best to assist your wife in dealing with her mother's intestate estate.

 However if your wife does not have any reasonably informed siblings or other close relatives to assist her in obtaining the Letters of Administration ( the equivalent of probate) ,  you both sound as if you will  require hands on professional assistance in obtaining the LOA, dealing with potential Inheritance tax payable , and generally ensuring the estate is efficiently administered on behalf of the surviving beneficiaries.

The questions you ask suggest this could be quite a steep learning curve  for you  and although HMRC allows 6 months from death for any IHT to be paid,  that time can disappear rapidly if you run into difficulty with regard to general paperwork, and the major decision of what to do about the house. 

In short I suggest you get a few quotes from a few local solicitors as to cost to obtain the LOA and advice on how to deal with any IHT that may arise on the net value of the estate. 

I would add that some estates can be easy if there is a Will and no IHT to worry about, your mother in law 's estate where neither of  these apply, is likely to be less than straightforward.

 Finally, see below a blog outlining general aspects of the tasks and duties  that lie ahead of your wife if she is going to be the primary Personal Representative for the intestate estate.


https://www.gnlaw.co.uk/news/what-does-an-administrator-of-an-estate-do/

bobster2

Different financial institutions all have different thresholds for amounts they will release without probate/letters of administration. So you will get different answers.