Probate and advice re Solicitor

getthemax

A friend of my brother-in-law has recently lost her husband, and has had what I think is a strange request from the solicitor who drew up their wills and did their house purchase.

They were married for 39 years, with no children, and their wills name each other as sole beneficiaries .

She is sole executor of the will.

The solicitor has said that there must be a full valuation of everything her husband owned, including the jointly owned house and contents, clothes, stamp collection, car etc as the solicitor says these are needed for probate.

I thought that in instances such as this where everything is left to the spouse, then it was all very simple, however the solicitor seems to want to do all this extra work.

Is this a normal, fair, necessary and legal thing to request/demand be done? And why should he request this when he's not even an executor?

tanith

Could it be for Inheritence Tax purposes?

getthemax

tanith wrote: »

Could it be for Inheritence Tax purposes?

There's no inheritance tax where all the property is left to the spouse as far as I know.

mary43

I'm no legal expert.............can only go by what happened when my Dad died. Their will was such that everything went to the remaining spouse. My brother was executor and all that was needed was a visit to the solicitor to change the name of the deeds of the house to Mums name. I think a valuation was done on the house but whether that was due to the name change I don't know.
There was certainly no valuation done on any of my Dads posessions.

No doubt someone else will be able to give a more definite reply.

tanith

getthemax wrote: »

There's no inheritance tax where all the property is left to the spouse as far as I know.

I stand to be corrected but I think you will find there is...

Fluffi

I assisted my mother with completing probate paperwork a few years ago (we did it ourselves without using a solicitor). There is a section on the forms that asks for valuations of everything the deceased owned that was valuable .e.g house, car, so I think this is why the solicitor is asking for this information if the solicitor is doing the probate on behalf of the executor.

We had to complete the valuation section even though everything was transfering between spouses (as stated in the will) and there was no inheritance tax liability. All we detailed on the forms in the end was the house and maybe some jewelery.

I have no idea why the solicitor is asking about clothes though - I would imagine this would only be relevant if they are expensive designer clothes unless probate has changed.

mountainofdebt

tanith wrote: »

I stand to be corrected but I think you will find there is...

Wouldn't it depend on how the house was held?

woozywendy

We are doing probate for our Great Aunt at the moment and the only things the solicitor listed on the form were half the value of the house and any bank accounts in his sole name and half the value in joint accounts.

judy2357

She is the sole Executrix but who are the beneficiaries and what were they left

judy2357

Sorry didnt read your post properly

dzug1

tanith wrote: »

I stand to be corrected but I think you will find there is...

Stand corrected then:

if your estate passes to your husband, wife or civil partner and you are both domiciled in the UK there is no Inheritance Tax to pay even if it's above the £312,000 nil rate band

From HMRC site