Probate has been granted.. Who do solicitors pay the sale proceeds to?

Direbus

Mother in law passed away late last year. Older brother was appointed executor . He appointed mum's solicitors to complete probate. But not granted Executor status.

Grant of probate has now been completed with no IHT payable.

The house sale is due to complete in the next few weeks.. A different firm of solicitors are handling this work.

These solicitors propose to pay the proceeds to solicitors who handled the probate.

is this correct..

My thought is the proceeds should go to the executor - who then distributes them and not the probate solicitor

The probate solicitors are already holding over £100k from proceeds of savings.. No distribution has been made..

Flugelhorn

normally would to the executor … unless the probate solicitors had been asked to manage the distribution of the estate (can happen)

Keep_pedalling

it is really down to the executor, if he has appointed the solicitor to do all the work then having then collect all the estate assets then distributing them would be normal.

Reed_Richards

The probate solicitors are already holding over £100k from proceeds of savings.

Why? This would imply that the older brother is employing the probate solicitors to manage the distribution of the estate. Otherwise I see no reason for them to be holding this money. Probate would have required them to value the savings but not to take control of them; indeed that would not have been possible until after probate was granted.

Daniel54

I assume the older brother is from your wife’s side of the family ,not yours,as it is your mother in law who died.

It looks likely that he employed solicitors to deal with probate,collate the estate assets and then distribute the relevant sums to beneficiaries.Absolutely nothing wrong with that.The only potential disadvantage is that solicitors can be conservative when making a partial distribution

To be honest I would let him proceed in whatever ways he has chosen as executor,particularly if it is your wife and not you who is the named beneficiary.There are a number of reasons why it might be preferable to pay the house proceeds into the account the probate solicitors are holding on behalf of the estate.

HHarry

The Solicitors who carried out the conveyancing on my Mum’s house insisted on paying the Beneficiaries (Me & my Brother) directly, rather than paying the Executor (Me) and letting me distribute.

It was no problem for me, so I didn’t challenge it.

p00hsticks

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82069630#Comment_82069630

Whrereaas when I wa executor to my brother's estate, the conveyancer insisted on the proceeds being paid into an offical executors account ( the fact that there were around 40 beneficiaries may have swayed their decision…. )

NedS

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82069630#Comment_82069630

What if there were still debts to settle from the Estate?

HedgeHogHarry

Might be some confusion between Grant of Probate (giving the executor the authority to distribute an estate) and 'Probate' used more broadly to describe the process of applying for the Grant, closing accounts, selling property and other admin tasks that follow someone's death. If the lawyers have been instructed for a full service probate (often costs thousands of pounds), they'll handle everything and will likely want the house proceeds to be paid into the segregated cash account that they'll have set up for the estate so there is a full paper trail. Worth checking with them though.

Dead_keen

 the conveyancer insisted on the proceeds being paid into an offical executors account ( the fact that there were around 40 beneficiaries may have swayed their decision…. )

Me too, although there were only four beneficiaries.