Help with probate?

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

Banzai_Joe

Soldato
Joined
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Location
Midlands, UK
Hi all,

has anyone had to deal with probate recently?
We're trying to sort my dad's estate out after he died on 6th Feb.
I've been directed to the t'interweb, but my god it seems like a minefield to find the correct form to fill in.

We are basically, as far as i think, applying for probate, and will fill in the forms ourselves rather than pay the leeches, err, solicitors £400 for them to fill in the same forms.
My dad's estate has been roughly calculated and inheritence tax will need to be paid, but obviously forms still need to be filled in.

Anyone got any pointers please?
 
I'm applying for probate at the moment, but using legal advice. I think form IHT400 is a good start as it details what you need to do?

Sorry to hear about your Dad by the way.
 
My uncle was an executor to my fathers estate along with my dad's best friend. I can't recall/never saw what was involved. I know it'll take a fair while and that several copies of the death certificate will be required.
 
Banzai_Joe said:
Thanks gilly.....apprecate it. Looking now.
My condolences in return, if that is indeed why you are applying?
Click to expand...

It is indeed, my Mum sadly passed away last November.

It may help if I explain the procedure I've followed to date:-

At the coroner's court, an interim death certificate was granted pending a full inquest.

I visited/contacted banks/building societies who copied the death certificate. The majority require grant of probate to release funds, some paid into an executors account which my brother and I set up (as funds under £5000). You can use a free business accout as an executors account, no credit interest is paid.

My Mum's financial advisor dealt with investments. Again, the majority require sight of the grant of probate to proceed.

All of the above financial institutions were asked to confirm funds at the date of death. This information is then passed to my Solicitor as part of inheritance tax. We also needed to value the house and establish details of any gifts as these are subject to 20% tax (less than IHT).

Once my Solicitor had all the financial details, he sent form IHT400 for me and my brother to sign, which we then returned to him with payment for the inheritance tax liability. N.B. If you don't have funds, then interest becomes payable at 3% per annum after six months from the date of death, even if funds can't be released pending the inquest! Fortunately, we have managed to obtain funds from one trust company and a life policy.

My Solicitor then sent me the probate papers to sign. If represented, you need to visit another Solicitor to swear an oath that the will and/or codicil are valid and original, have not been replaced etc. This costs between £7 and £18 depending on the number of executors and codicils. If not represented, then you must visit the probate court to swear an oath.

N.B. Do not amend/staple/deface the will or codicil. The only thing that we added was a signature (including the Solicitor) to the front cover.

That is the latest step, my Solicitor is waiting to hear from the tax office that the tax liability has been met in order that the probate papers can be submitted. Bear in mind that the tax office can still investigate and seek further tax liabilities post probate.
 
Thanks again gilly, most things are sorted, its just the probate.
My dad had a few grand in the bank but not enough for them to approach probate so they will, once processed, transfer all his funds to my mum.
As my mum is the surviving joint tenant, the house goes to her and doesn't form part of dads estate.
Mortgage endowment is being sorted (i think)
Although he has left my mum very well off finanically, his estate is very very little. He was a very wise and shrewd businesman. :) His private pension which he always had paid into my mums account was huge and the transition over to her as benefactor has been pretty much seemless.

Luckily the house is worth about £300k and with no mortgage, mum will be buying a small bungalow at half that price, so she'll have another little bundle of money as change to add to the pot.

Just spoke to my older brother who seem to think the only forms we need fill in are PA1 and IHT205.

The best thing to come out of losing loved ones this way, is the comfort that they leave their surviving spouse without financial worries.

Proud of yer, pop! :)
 
I'm going through this at the minute (though it's called Confirmation in Scotland). I offered to do it myself, but because of the lack of will and our desire to overrule prior rights the family decided it was best to allow the solicitor to take charge.

After I was appointed executor, all I have to do is sign the odd form now and then. If the estate is worth anything, I'd advise using a solicitor.

gillywibble said:
My Solicitor then sent me the probate papers to sign. If represented, you need to visit another Solicitor to swear an oath that the will and/or codicil are valid and original, have not been replaced etc. This costs between £7 and £18 depending on the number of executors and codicils. If not represented, then you must visit the probate court to swear an oath.
Click to expand...

I got the confirmation forms today, and whilst they need to be witnessed it doesn't matter who does it. Is that not the case down there?
 
I'll do a proper post tomorrow. I've JUST finshed dealing with this for my dad. Its overcomplicated just to keep the law people in work !

Dad died in June last year unexpectedly, so *nothing* was where we wanted to find it. Short version was that it was a real mess (no idea where accounts were held etc) and you need to find all this out.

I did a lot of reading, a lot of fact finding, and then approached several solicitors for quotes helping us through the process.

Some jokers want £XXXX + X% of the estate. Tell them to get lost.

We managed to get a load of help, unlimited questions answered, and a fast service for just over £1k. The Solicitor completed all the forms after we gave him the info. This was a godsend as lots of extra IHT forms had to be filled in due to the composure of the estate. He was also more aware of what could get put into and kept out of the 'true' value of the estate.

I'll have a proper read of this and post a reply later tomorrow
 
If it's even remotely complicated get a solicitor - this is what I did last year when my father died - turns out the solicitor was worth every penny.

My condolences, too.
 
Condolences as I had to do this 4 years ago when my dad passed.

It's a fairly simple process (provided he left no dependents under 18 as you need 2 people to sort out the estate as I did) you fill in the form which you have (they changes it by the sounds of it as it was a while ago for me), you need a few copies of the death certificate, a notice of his death in a national paper thing (to effectively inform any active debts of the death) and a clean bank account helps.

Once you have the authorisation of probate you can show that to any larger sums of money (over 10k) to be released to you. You are then obliged to either pay off all debts in full, if that isn't possible you need to negotiate with each debt to organise an acceptable sum (bit grim but its pretty simple to do). Once you do that the money then is then free to be shared between who you see fit (as executor of the estate) but that's easy if you go equal percentage between family members or some sort of mutually agreeable thing (usually easy if you're all nice).

I think inheritance tax was done on the individual inheritance over 300k (or something pretty big) so generally no one individual has to pay too much to that.

As executors you are finally responsible for all the left over physical possessions, but by the sounds of your mum being about she sort of covers that :)

Been ages since I had to do this so my memory is very sketchy but it's not the hardest of processes, just hated the idea that a solicitor profits from grief a bit (I know they are taking the pain away from a hard time but it does feel like profiteering a bit). Either way make sure you and your family are ok :)
 
My Mother and I handled my late fathers estate last year.

The one piece of advise I can offer is get multiple copies of the death certificate, more than you think you need. We had 6 copies and that still wasn't enough without having to wait for some to come back to send to other people, this really dragged out the process.

Mortgage.
Bank accounts.
Credit Card.
Building Society.
Stocks/Shares.
Death in Service from his Employer.
Insurance Policies.
Mobile Phone/Other DD's.
Pensions.

The list goes on!


Luckily a family friend that is a Solictor made the certified copies of the Will, as some places wanted copies of this as well.

As for the probate process, we followed the guides on the directgov website, using forms PA1, IHT205 and IHT421. It does seem overly complicated and daunting at first, but it does make sense eventually.

My condolences for your loss.
 
Def worth having a solicitor as they should cover every angle. My wife's aunt died last year and it was all handled by her solicitor. It takes time but it all went ok and we were glad he was onboard to sort it all out.
 
Me and my Mum have just finished dealing with my Dads estate - we got all the details of Dad's investments to provide to the solicitor, then got them to deal with the paperwork.
Despite being relatively straightforward (everything has gone to my Mum) it has still taken about eight months to get finalised, and would no doubt have been longer if we'd had to sort out all the legal stuff ourselves.

Solicitors aren't cheap, but when you're grieving dealing with unhelpful bureaucracy on your own can be the last thing you need.
 
It does take time to sort out but as you say, its the last thing you want to deal with when someone close to you passes away
 
Sorry for the bump but i'm goign through this now.

Conanius - you never updated this :p still have advice in mind?

Luckily it's quite simple for my situation.

Will in place
Assets below IHT threshold.
No debts, no credit cards. No shares, etc.
 
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