Inheritance Tax -Joint Bank Account

400ixl

Sorry for your loss. As there is no will, have you applied to be the administrator of his estate? If not, any you are struggling is there another close relative who could apply for that role and you work closely with them.

On his private pension, have you contacted the trustee's? If it was a defined benefits policy it may well be the policy ends with him if there is no spouse. With a Defined Contributions policy, there may well be a legacy if it allowed. He should have completed a form to nominate someone to receive whatever the policy entitles the beneficiary to.

WeepingWillow25

RAS said:

So the basic IHT allowance on your dad's estate is £650k because he inherited mum's allowance, unless she gifted a lot of money in the last 7 years of her life

Your father's gifts to your daughter are below the £3k per annum allowance, so not an issue.

Obviously you need to clarify, but look very unlikely any IHT is owing.

Thank you for your reply RAS. My mum had very little assets due to illness so there wasn't anything to gift as such so I think there is no issue there, but as you say it does seem like some clarification is necessary. Thank you again

RAS

WeepingWillow25 said:

RAS said:

So the basic IHT allowance on your dad's estate is £650k because he inherited mum's allowance, unless she gifted a lot of money in the last 7 years of her life

Your father's gifts to your daughter are below the £3k per annum allowance, so not an issue.

Obviously you need to clarify, but look very unlikely any IHT is owing.

Thank you for your reply RAS. My mum had very little assets due to illness so there wasn't anything to gift as such so I think there is no issue there, but as you say it does seem like some clarification is necessary. Thank you again

If mum had very little by the way of assets, she wouldn't be making large gifts to anyone. So you should just assume that dad inherited her IHT allowance intact. 

Take a bit of time to grieve and stop worrying about paperwork side for a few weeks. 

WeepingWillow25

RAS said:

WeepingWillow25 said:

RAS said:

So the basic IHT allowance on your dad's estate is £650k because he inherited mum's allowance, unless she gifted a lot of money in the last 7 years of her life

Your father's gifts to your daughter are below the £3k per annum allowance, so not an issue.

Obviously you need to clarify, but look very unlikely any IHT is owing.

Thank you for your reply RAS. My mum had very little assets due to illness so there wasn't anything to gift as such so I think there is no issue there, but as you say it does seem like some clarification is necessary. Thank you again

If mum had very little by the way of assets, she wouldn't be making large gifts to anyone. So you should just assume that dad inherited her IHT allowance intact. 

Take a bit of time to grieve and stop worrying about paperwork side for a few weeks. 

Thank you so much, I think I was kind of putting myself under pressure to inform the different agencies about his passing even though mentally I don't think I'm ready for it. Thank you for your good advice, I think I'm still in disbelief about his passing honestly, he was a big character and so things just seem so empty at the moment x

Flugelhorn

did they discuss the "tell us once" system when you registered the death? that is a good way of letting organisations directly know without having to phone them up and explain. When my mother died they cancelled: Council tax, NHS pension , State pension, attendance allowance, blue badge, library ticket,. driving licence and passport all in one go 

WeepingWillow25

They did Flugelhorn, but I think the code has passed by now, I think it's 28 days after the death certificate is issued. I should have used it but stupidly didn't, hopefully I will pull myself together soon and just finish the remaining bits x

sneedshelp

RAS said:

Take a bit of time to grieve and stop worrying about paperwork side for a few weeks. 
---------

I strongly agree with that, and with hindsight wish that I had done so last year.

Everyone is on the right lines.

With your dad being a widower, and the value of the estate being between £325,000 and £650,000, you do not need to fill in any inheritance tax forms and you do not need to pay any inheritance tax.

You can go straight to applying for probate, and you tick that you are applying the ' unused allowance ', which would be your mum's inheritance tax allowance of £325,000, so combining your mum and dad's separate allowances, you are raising your IHT allowance to £650,000.

I got this from a telephone discussion with HMRC last year.

Regarding ' Any help would be appreciated as my understanding of money matters .....  ',

..... take your time.

My Mum's bank had bereavement specialist advisers, and I got a lot of advice from staff at my own bank, and they were all very good.

WeepingWillow25

Thank you sneedshelp and I am sorry for the loss of your mum, it's just so painful. I will definitely take your guys advice and hold off on the paperwork. Today has been one of the worst days I've had since he passed, I think I wasn't ready to try sorting through things yet.

Keep_pedalling

WeepingWillow25 said:

Thank you sneedshelp and I am sorry for the loss of your mum, it's just so painful. I will definitely take your guys advice and hold off on the paperwork. Today has been one of the worst days I've had since he passed, I think I wasn't ready to try sorting through things yet.

The only really important thing to do, if you have not done it already is to inform the bank. The account should be frozen to prevent any more payments going in or out of it.

poppystar

Keep_pedalling said:

WeepingWillow25 said:

Thank you sneedshelp and I am sorry for the loss of your mum, it's just so painful. I will definitely take your guys advice and hold off on the paperwork. Today has been one of the worst days I've had since he passed, I think I wasn't ready to try sorting through things yet.

The only really important thing to do, if you have not done it already is to inform the bank. The account should be frozen to prevent any more payments going in or out of it.

As it’s a joint account with OP I’m not sure it has to be frozen. The joint account I had with my father was simply transferred into my name by the bereavement team. Any direct debits or standing orders needed to be changed with the organisations concerned but other than that I was able to use my debit card for the account and write cheques to people owed straight away. 

OP speak l to the bereavement team at the bank, their number should be easily found online, and they will tell you what they see as the next step with them. You might start by moving some of the money into interest bearing accounts even if you are not going to touch it yet, assuming you are happy with interest from your belief standpoint.