Benefits entitlement as an executor

Regalia6969

Hi everyone. I am currently receiving Universal Credit. However I and my father are both executors of my late Nan's estate. The funds from her bank account and rebates from services/utilities/tax etc are now all in an executor's account with Natwest (approx £10k) in both of our names, which we now have access to after acquiring grant of probate. We also need to sell her property in order to pay off everything and settle the estate.

Where do I stand with my means-tested benefits? I technically have access to this money but it is not MY money to live on or do anything else with personally, it is just for the estate's debts until we can settle the estate and pay all beneficiaries etc. I am one of the beneficiaries and I'm fully aware that I need to declare any inheritance to adjust my benefits, but as executor I haven't actually "inherited" anything yet. I don't want to get done for fraud or do something incorrect here but I'm not sure how DWP would view this. Any advice would be grand.

molerat

As you say, the money is not yours.  As long as it is an executors account then there will be no problems.  What is shown as account title on any statements ?

Keep_pedalling

It should not impact your benefits as it is not in a personal account but an executors account. As an executor you are not in a position to distribute that money yet as the estate will have costs associated with the house sale to meet. 

Regalia6969

molerat said:

As you say, the money is not yours.  As long as it is an executors account then there will be no problems.  What is shown as account title on any statements ?

That's what I was hoping. No statements received yet but on online banking the account is simply our names followed by exec e.g. "MR E & F SMITH EXEC". And we needed to provide documentation including will and probate to give us access.

Regalia6969

Keep_pedalling said:

It should not impact your benefits as it is not in a personal account but an executors account. As an executor you are not in a position to distribute that money yet as the estate will have costs associated with the house sale to meet. 

Precisely this, I've paid off some debts (council, utilities, etc.) associated with the estate but otherwise it's going untouched until the sale of the house is complete. This is what I was hoping but wasn't sure if DWP saw it otherwise.

Robbie64

The money in the executor's account belongs to the estate and not to yourself in a personal capacity. There's no need to declare the executor account to the DWP.