Executors' Bank Account - how & when to open

AnaBenjie · 17 July 2017 at 9:42AM

My sister and I are joint exectors of my Mother's Will (a widow, she died last Friday, 14th July). The will is very simple as there is no property and no debt only savings and there are only four benficiaries - Mother's only 2 children (me & sister) and only 2 grandchildren (my nephews). The sums involved is well over £5000 but also below the IHT threshold. We two executors intend to deal with probate ourselves. All four of us involved get on very well.
There will be costs immediately (fees, funeral, cremation, etc.). I understand from posts here that it is sensible to open an executor's bank account for this purpose. Can we do this at the time we inform our mother's bank that she has died? Presumably once they are informed our mother has died the bank will deny access to mother's account ? (Before her death we were acting as registered joint attorneys and were paying her few costs by cheque from her account.) Are the bank likely to be cooperative over this?
For the time being I would personally be able to fund (i.e. "lend") a new Exectors' account by deposting a few thousand pounds for immediate and ongoing costs involved in getting probate through.
Please could anyone give advice/experiences of the best way to proceed.
Thank you all.

getmore4less · 17 July 2017 at 9:50AM

You may not even need probate if those holding the assets will release them.

As part of the enquiries you should be able to establish if any are going to want a grant.

executors accounts are mainly to make the tracking easy, to provide some transpanancy any account will do and may be easier if there is not a lot of trasactions likley.

LPA lapse on death so you should no longer be using them to deal with your mother finances.

All creditors should wait for funds to be available, funeral expences can be directed to an account with sufficient money most banks will release in advance of a grant.

troubleinparadise · 17 July 2017 at 10:02AM

I'm sorry for your loss of your Mum...

Hopefully the bank holding your mother's account will be helpful over opening an executor's account (not all are, through ignorance of procedures, and it varies between branches and banks!)

As already said, you may not need an executors account anyway - check whether institutions will require Probate before releasing funds.

Should you open an Exec account, don't put your own money in it - should you need to pay costs up front, reclaim it later. We couldn't use the Exec account until we had Probate anyway, so that would have tied up personal liquid funds for months!

Yorkshireman99 · 17 July 2017 at 10:10AM

You really must notify the bank of the death without delay so no further payments in or out are made. As others have said yu probably don't need an executor's account.

Jenniefour · 17 July 2017 at 4:50PM

Notify your mothers bank(s) right way and let them know you will be expecting them to release money to pay for funeral costs - which, I understand they will do when you produce the invoice. Let funeral people know the money is coming from your mothers account.

When my mother died recently myself and my brother (only beneficiaries apart from two small bequests to charity) paid out of our own accounts for the funeral and I will refund both of us from Mum's money when the bank releases it, having already sent them the grant of probate. That was less hassle for us, and, as executor, I have kept all the receipts and done a simple interim set of accounts for the estate so we both know exactly what expenses have been incurred for the funeral and other costs (e.g. electricity and gas on Mum's house, small refund on overpaid state pension), and what each of us is owed.

I didn't open an executors account as I soon found out it was a big hassle - one or long conversations in banks with no executors account forthcoming and I did wonder if those I spoke to actually knew what they were talking about.

So I have agreed with my brother that the money from Mum's accounts will be going into one of my accounts and I will pay everyone out immediately, as per expenses incurred and Mum's will.

Yorkshireman, out of interest, is there a specific amount of money above which an executors account either must be opened or it's advisable to do so?

badmemory · 17 July 2017 at 4:56PM

When I tried to open an executor's account when our mother died 2 years ago the bank actually refused to open one & said it wasn't necessary even for over £200k. Instead all money (after probate) went into my account and then I just shared it out. I was actually surprised at how easy it was. The thing that took the longest was getting a cheque re-issued that had been sent to my mother's care home a month before she died & that they lost, but that was mostly because it was another month before we realised it was missing. Without that all was completed in 2.5 months. Don't forget to tell the beneficiaries to let their bank know if the sum is significant.

Yorkshireman99 · 17 July 2017 at 5:38PM

Jenniefour wrote: »

Notify your mothers bank(s) right way and let them know you will be expecting them to release money to pay for funeral costs - which, I understand they will do when you produce the invoice. Let funeral people know the money is coming from your mothers account.

When my mother died recently myself and my brother (only beneficiaries apart from two small bequests to charity) paid out of our own accounts for the funeral and I will refund both of us from Mum's money when the bank releases it, having already sent them the grant of probate. That was less hassle for us, and, as executor, I have kept all the receipts and done a simple interim set of accounts for the estate so we both know exactly what expenses have been incurred for the funeral and other costs (e.g. electricity and gas on Mum's house, small refund on overpaid state pension), and what each of us is owed.

I didn't open an executors account as I soon found out it was a big hassle - one or long conversations in banks with no executors account forthcoming and I did wonder if those I spoke to actually knew what they were talking about.

So I have agreed with my brother that the money from Mum's accounts will be going into one of my accounts and I will pay everyone out immediately, as per expenses incurred and Mum's will.

Yorkshireman, out of interest, is there a specific amount of money above which an executors account either must be opened or it's advisable to do so?

There is no specific amount. What you have done sounds OK as long as you don get run over by a bus! Then the problem would working out what money belong to you. Banks, particularly the front line staff, seem very bad at dealing with executors account needs. There is no one size fits all answer. Sorry I can't be more help.

Jenniefour · 17 July 2017 at 6:35PM

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

There is no specific amount. What you have done sounds OK as long as you don get run over by a bus! Then the problem would working out what money belong to you. Banks, particularly the front line staff, seem very bad at dealing with executors account needs. There is no one size fits all answer. Sorry I can't be more help.

Thanks for your reply. Yes, it had occurred to me that there might be a problem if I died before the estate is finally settled so I also told the executors of my will - just in case.

It was front line staff I was dealing with and, although they dealt with me sympathetically and nicely, I did get the impression they probably weren't in full possession of the facts.

Yorkshireman99 · 17 July 2017 at 7:02PM

Many banks have a central bereavment section. They usually, but not always, are more clued up. Worth a try anyway.

Brighty · 18 July 2017 at 9:26AM

I found the only reason i needed to open an executors account was for 1 or 2 cheques received payable to 'the estate of***' or 'executor of***', just refunds for fairly minimal amounts, think it was car insurance and something else, £200 total.

The only way i could cash them was to open an executor account. Was straight forward to do, did it in branch at my fathers bank, account opened and cheques paid in. I then had to wait a few weeks for the cheque book to arrive to i could write myself a cheque to empty the account then close it.

AnaBenjie · 20 July 2017 at 6:31AM

Thanks very much everyone for the experiences and advice. It's incredibly reassuring and helpful when we're doing this as it's a "relatively" (sic) unique experience and emotions are having to be dealt with.
We had a fraught experience between doctor/s and nursing home in getting the correct cause of death paperwork, but after that people have been very undestanding.
As people are reportiing here and on other threads we have come across, their are differing rules from different banks. One at least says we will need an Executors' Account (after probate), another not. It's certainly not an urgent action, it seems.
Thanks again. This forum is great.

Executors' Bank Account - how & when to open

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