Dealing with a dead person's estate. Some quesions.

[BlackLabel]

Helping a close family member deal with the estate of their husband who has recently died, and I had a few questions. This is in Scotland so something called 'confirmation' needs to be applied for (the Scottish equivalent of probate) but my questions are quite generic so I don't imagine this matters too much.

A summary of the facts

• Husband died and has left everything to his wife in his will. The wife is named as the executor. The will was drawn up about 8 years ago however the solicitor who did this no longer works due to ill health and he was a one man operation so his company no longer exists. Anyway, the will is in the possession of the family so I guess this is a moot point.
• Legally it's classified as a 'large' estate (i.e over the 36k threshold).
• The estate consists of the family home ( in joint names) and a rental property (in joint names) - neither have a mortgage on them.
• All of their bank accounts, bonds etc are in joint names except his ISA accounts.
• His shares (about 20-30k worth) are obviously in his name only.
• Their are no debts.

I am aware that HMRC form C1 needs to be completed.

So the questions:

1 - The form requires an inventory to be listed and the widow's head is understandably all over the place right now so is it a major problem if the inventory isn't 100% accurate. I'm not talking about missing out 80% of his estate but if, due to emotional issues, 10% or 20% of the inventory is missed out is this okay?

2 - What happens with joint bank accounts and bonds, especially fixed term ones - do they refund the funds straight away and you then have to re-invest or do they just remove the dead person's name and it carries on as usual? The latter would be preferable as many of these were set up when interest rates were higher than they are now.

3 - What happens to any ISAs, can they be transferred to the wife or do they just write out a cheque to the widow for what was in the account (and hence the tax free part of it is lost)?

4 - Finally there are some cheques arriving in the post for the the deceased (things like share dividends) - is it okay to deposit these in the husband and wives joint bank account? They are not of high value.

I know some folks here will say consult a professional however the death is quite recent so obviously meetings will be arranged with the banks, the accountant, and possibly a solicitor however I am just trying to get a head start with things. At the moment the wife is in no mental state to arrange such meetings.

We have obviously informed insurance companies and the registrar here now offer a 'tell us once' service which is great as they inform the council, HMRC, DWP, public sector pension administrator, and the passport office which is very helpful.

Thanks in advance for any help.

Edited by BlackLabel on Saturday 11th July 23:14

[BlackLabel]

Thanks and sorry for your loss.

MBBlat said:

Not an expert, but going through the same process at the moment having recently lost my dad.
AFAIK joint accounts can just have the deceased name removed ie the account goes from Mr & Mrs J Blogg to Mrs J Blogg. If you can go in person to the bank to get this sorted. Once the account is changed you won't be able to pay in any cheques addressed to the husband.
ISA - I was told they can now be inherited and no longer need to be cashed in.

I'm south of the border so the above may not apply to Scotland, so get expert advice. In my opinion the banks etc are good and sympathetic.

[BlackLabel]

Aretnap said:

BlackLabel said:

3 - What happens to any ISAs, can they be transferred to the wife or do they just write out a cheque to the widow for what was in the account (and hence the tax free part of it is lost)?

The rules changed recently so that the contents of the ISA can be transferred to a spouse. AIUI it doesn't get transferred directly; rather her ISA allowance for this year is increased by the amount of money she inherits from her husband's ISA. So she still gets a cheque from the husband's ISA provider, but she can put the money into an ISA in her own name and retain the tax advantages if she wants to. This seems to explain it - https://www.youinvest.co.uk/isa/isa-changes-2015

Thank you.

[BlackLabel]

gothatway said:

As I understand it from recent experience (again south of the border, so maybe different), the real purpose of the inventory is to determine liability for Inheritance Tax. Only if you're getting close to IHT liability do you start needing to worry about great accuracy.

Thanks, that's the legal advice I received too.

Will be sorting out the probate (confirmation) ourselves but thought it wise to have at least one session with a solicitor.

On a related note - agencies like the DWP and the Scottish Public Pensions Agency have been superb and mega efficient when dealing with the transfer of pensions. In fact even the Royal Mail have been great. The same goes for the DVLA for things like transferring the registered keeper of cars.

Public services sometimes get a lot of criticism on PHs but I can't fault any of them so far when dealing with them over this death.

[BlackLabel]

matchmaker said:

When my mum died I applied for confirmation myself. I found all the agencies involved very helpful, especially the banks. I employed a solicitor solely to deal with the sale of her flat.

Two things helped. Firstly, she was a widow and I was the sole beneficiary and executor named in her will. Secondly, I was a Sheriff Clerk for 20 years and processed several applications for confirmation weekly!

Just how much detail do they expect you to provide?

For example if someone had say £40k worth of shares in 8 different companies is it sufficient to write:

Various shares in companies 1, 2, 3......8 - total value = £?

Or are they looking for:

X number of shares in company Y - current value = £ and then repeat this numerous times?

Edited by BlackLabel on Tuesday 28th July 15:13

[BlackLabel]

matchmaker said:

The latter. You would ask the Sheriff Clerk for certificates of confirmation for each item. You then send the certificates to the company (via a stockbroker if necessary) to either encash the shares or transfer then to the name of the beneficiary.

You couldn't do that if all the shares were lumped together.

Many thanks, you've been very helpful.

One last question - would the same apply to different bank accounts at the same bank? For example would 4 certificates of confirmation be needed if there were 4 fixed term savings accounts at bank X?

And finally (I promise), what happens if a savings certificate turns up X months after confirmation has been granted and this was not on the initial inventory - do we need to re-apply for this one item?

Some of you are probably shouting ffs seek legal help however the wife took very little interest in the financial affairs (apart from signing documents) of the family and whilst almost everything is in joint names she doesn't seem to know exactly what they had savings wise. Every time I go over to the house another file pops up with an additional savings account at a bank. Nonetheless, lots of progress is being made with the inventory.

And the widow is still 'not ready' (fair enough we all grieve differently) to have meetings with accountants, banks etc so even if we did go down the legal route she would not meet them yet and they would not discuss the specifics with me as I'm not the executor.

Anyway I promised I'd help so I'll follow through with it.

[BlackLabel]

Thanks for the helpful comments chaps.

This is quite a simple case (100% to wife + he left a will) - I'd hate to imagine the paperwork involved when there are multiple beneficiaries, IHT due or if there are debts etc or worse still when people are fighting over assets and contesting a will.

It must also be a nightmare when someone loses a loved one and is in desperate need for the money asap (a mother, with a young family perhaps, who has lost a husband) because the process can be quite time consuming.