Probate Question

[Arrivalist]

My dad died two weeks ago - he was 91 and had a fabulous life so all is as good as it can be.

Everything he owned or part owned with my mum goes to her in the will. Nice and simple and no IHT to worry about.

The only query I have is that the will states that my mum needs to survive for 28 days to receive everything, otherwise it passes to my sister and myself.

With that in mind, am I still able to apply for probate within the 28 day window? I’m guessing I can but just wanted to be sure that I’m not falling foul of something.

I’m doing it all online as the estate is very simple.

Many thanks.
Gary

[omniflow]

I had pretty much exactly this scenario around 3 years ago. Absolutely zero issues applying for probate before the 28 days (31 in my case). All very straightforward and the grant of probate was received very quickly.

[ChrisH72]

Do you need probate if assets were jointly owned?

Even if you do, there's no requirement to apply for it so quickly. Why not just wait?

[Arrivalist]

omniflow said:

I had pretty much exactly this scenario around 3 years ago. Absolutely zero issues applying for probate before the 28 days (31 in my case). All very straightforward and the grant of probate was received very quickly.

Many thanks.

[alscar]

Arrivalist said:

My dad died two weeks ago - he was 91 and had a fabulous life so all is as good as it can be.

Everything he owned or part owned with my mum goes to her in the will. Nice and simple and no IHT to worry about.

The only query I have is that the will states that my mum needs to survive for 28 days to receive everything, otherwise it passes to my sister and myself.

With that in mind, am I still able to apply for probate within the 28 day window? I m guessing I can but just wanted to be sure that I m not falling foul of something.

I m doing it all online as the estate is very simple.

Many thanks.
Gary

Sorry for your loss.
You can apply for probate now but equally you could wait 28 days - there is no law saying probate needs to be actioned within that time.
The “ survivorship “ clause is pretty standard.
If his affairs were simple then you may not even need probate for Dad.
Certain banks have different criteria for releasing monies and below certain points probate won’t be needed.
When my Dad died his will was identical to yours.
No probate needed and Mum survived him by 28 days.

[Arrivalist]

Thanks all for the replies, it’s much appreciated.

Although there’s no ‘need’ to do this now, there are so many things to sort that I just want to systematically start going through them sooner rather than later. Many of the other things require probate to be granted, so it seems a sensible place to start.

[alscar]

Understand that.
Having a to do list with 2 columns - 1 to tick when actioned and 1 to tick when completed I found useful.
Think of the process as baby steps rather than one overall task will also seem a lot less daunting.
And don’t forget to think of yourself in the grieving process.

[Arrivalist]

alscar said:

Understand that.
Having a to do list with 2 columns - 1 to tick when actioned and 1 to tick when completed I found useful.
Think of the process as baby steps rather than one overall task will also seem a lot less daunting.
And don t forget to think of yourself in the grieving process.

Many thanks for this - really appreciated.

Luckily I’m good at admin so the list already exists

Regarding your last point, very true. My wife and I both comment yesterday that we feel ‘stuck’ at the moment so I agree that little baby steps and time to reflect are very important.