Grant of Confirmation

Thanks for the reply skintmumofone now received private message. I'm sorry about your uncle, hope his recovery goes well.

I've not done it yet but am hoping to get it submitted this week.

Thanks very much for the offer of help littlewife, most of my further questions are still above, but I realise it's a lot!

There is something I mentioned above that I now believe is incorrect in that I thought the process was you send forms C1 and C5 and any supporting documents in and then they check them and then you go in to make an oath. I got this wrong I think - you just submit it and then they issue confirmation if it is correct or send back to you if not (this still creates a problem in my mind about what the actual date of application is if you have to submit a new C1 for instance). There is no oath in person like in England.

I think The Requirements of Writing Act is potentially relevant in terms of the validity of the will, if the cover sheet is deemed to be a separate page (as I mentioned above) (I don't understand your statment above about this skintmumofone):

Under the 1995 Act, to be valid as a Will, a writing must be signed at the end of the last page (subscribed) by the testator. Where a Will consists of more than one page, every page must be signed by the testator, although only the final page needs to be subscribed. The testator may sign anywhere on the other pages.

(From the HMRC website)

Hi I finally got this done. Thanks for the help on this forum last year . It turned out that the staff at the Sheriff's court I went to were extremely nice and very helpful. With this in mind (that they might have been a little more willing to overlook any errors in form and procedure than others might be), I'm spending a bit of time to write up the details of my application for Grant of Confirmation and hopefully this will be a bit of use to anyone else doing this.


A summary of the procedure is that as arranged on the telephone with the court I sent by post the undated and unsigned forms C1 and C5 and a copy of the will into the court. They checked everything and then I made an appointment to see the Sheriff to go in with the original will and at that appointment dated the forms (to the date I went in) and wrote and signed the docquet on the will (the Sheriff was willing to help with the wording). (This is as littlewife also experienced, I am not sure all courts would allow it to be done this way for estates over £35,000?)Also obviously I had to take the usual documents to prove ID on the day.



The wording that I put in paragraph 2 of the “declaration” on page 2 of the C1 form was (That I am) “[MY NAME], daughter and executrix nominate of the late [FATHER’S NAME] conform to the will of the deceased who resided at [FATHER’S ADDRESS], dated [DATE OF WILL] which is produced herewith, docquetted and signed by me as relative hereto. The wife of the deceased, [MOTHER’S NAME], is nominated as executrix in the will, but she died on [DATE MOTHER DIED].” The court found no problem with this.




Inventory


After writing the heading “Estate in Scotland” in the description Column I wrote the title “Heritable Estate” then I listed the house using the wording: “[ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE INCLUDING POSTCODE]” and then “being the subjects described in the disposition by [NAMES OF PREVIOUS OWNERS] in favour of [NAMES OF MY PARENTS] recorded GRS [DISTRICT] [DATE OF RECORDING] as valued by [NAME OF SURVEYORS]”. This is probably the bit where you need to put the most attention as it may go through confirmation OK but there still might be problems in the conveyancing if you get this wrong. I would think that if you are planning to get a solictior to do the conveyancing asking them to check this wording only would be a good idea, and if they are reasonable I don't think they should charge much if any extra on top of the conveyancing. Note that in general legal terms what I put was a “conveyancing description” (albeit a short form) of the house, mostly based upon the previous disposition that conveyed the house (recorded in Sasines register). I knew I had to do this from reading textbooks on conveyancing in Scotland. Be aware that in the notes for completion of form C1 for “Heritable Estate” it says “Please list each item of heritable estate (land, houses etc) in Scotland, giving sufficient detail in the description to allow each item to be recognised as a separate part of the estate”. This is misleading to the average person and I think you really do need the “conveyancing description” so do be careful! (Perhaps things will be easier with the new system of Land Registration, I don't know.)


I wrote a heading “Moveable Estate” in the “description column and put “Household Goods and Personal Effects” and then “value estimated by executrix” and put the total value that I had worked out from doing a real inventory and estimating the value of individual things using my own knowledge and ebay (so it was not a round figure). This was accepted by the court without issue (of course they only had a final figure they had no idea how I'd arrived at it). I didn't want a house clearance company just getting rid of everything, but that would be an alternative and their quote would give you a value to put here if your feelings are different to mine or if there might be some contention or the estate is near an IHT threshold. I also had a separate entry for Jewelery which was prepared by a professional valuer (I think perhaps I wasted money here as the valuation fee was a significant percentage of the value of the jewelery and I might have just estimated this myself and grouped it with the Household Goods and Personal Effects). The main point here is that it seems you need very little granularity in the inventory, despite that some historical Inventories for Confirmation that I've seen on the Historic Scotland website really do list every last item down to the frying pan!


The bank accounts however were all listed separately. The account numbers were given (I wasn't too keen on doing this as it is public record but the advice I had is that the account numbers were needed) and I put “balance at date of death including interest” under each account, as advised above. This was accepted without issue by the court.




Will and Docquet


As discussed above, the will, made with English solicitors, was written on two sides of one sheet of paper and also an additional coversheet was attached to it. I did not take the coversheet off the will, and it was accepted without a problem.


On the day I went in to take the will in and sign all the forms the docquet I wrote on the will (not the coversheet) was: “This is the will referred to in my Declaration of this date to the Inventory of Estate of the late [FATHER'S NAME], signed at [TOWN IN WHICH SHERIFF COURT IS IN] Sheriff Court on this date [DATE OF DECLARATION ie DATE I WENT IN]”. Then I just signed underneath this. The Sheriff was happy to advise that this wording would be fine. Whether all the concerns that I had above about the wording and placement of the date and location would be of concern in a stricter court I don't know.




I hope this is of help to someone. If you have any questions put them here – I may check back from time to time but no promises!


Overall the court were extremely helpful but the procedure is a total mess compared to the relatively straightforward form for probate in England (I haven't done that mind you, but have looked at the form!). It is basically achieving the same thing substantively so it shouldn't be so complicated and archaic. This procedure for applying for Grant of Confirmation should definitely be reformed in my opinion.