Do I have to apply for Probate?

[£15]

This forum is so full of knowledgeable, experienced and helpful people that I find myself, yet again, asking for some advice...

My father passed away last Monday and left a will declaring my mum as executor. She has had very little to do with the household finances and has asked me to handle things. My sister is also helping, but she's up the wall with a house move. We're a close family and are in constant communication, so I envisage no disagreements.

The will states everything goes to my mum, apart from the house. From discussions I had with my dad before his death and reading his will, his half has gone into trust for me and my sister (I believe this was a way to protect half of the property from care home fees). It's written in the will that my mum can live there as long as she wants; not that we would ever even consider, never mind ask, that she sell-up so we get access to money.

The house is worth in the region of £220k and mortgage free.

He had a car, worth about £7k, (no finance) but my mum can't drive and after a few family discussions, my mum will probably pass this over to my sister (I have no issue with this).

My dad had three life insurance policies amounting to £12,500.

He had three pensions, and my mum will be getting a widows pension on these - 50% I think - less than £4k pa.

All his other belongings just pass to my mum.

I'm yet to look at his bank accounts, but understand from my mum they only amount to a few thousand pounds.

All in all, it comes in at under the IHT threshold. So, do I need to apply for a 'grant of probate' if all the people I need to talk to, e.g. bank, insurance, pensions, etc don't ask for it?

 

[bremen1874]

My Mother had to when my Father died about 5 years ago. That was all straightforward with everything going to her but probate was still required.

She had to get the house valued and a few other things. Nothing too complicated and we did it ourselves with a bit of advice from people I know that work in that area.

At the time we didn't realise until quite late on as none of the institutions had asked for it.

 

[£15]

Thanks for the info. It seems like I'm on a similar path as so far everyone I've spoken to hasn't even mentioned probate. Was there a moment, or an issue, or something, that prompted the realisation that it was required?

 

[dirtychinchilla]

Sorry to hear about your father

 

[Brazo]

Sorry to hear about your father. You sound like a close family so why not just advise your mother through the process, she can do the ‘signing’ and you can all discuss what’s to be signed. That way no need for probate.

 

[flea.rider]

yes probate is needed .. before you touch any part of the will .. just went thru this .. and to let you know probate atm is taking 5-6 months ..

 

[Chris Wilson]

This forum is so full of knowledgeable, experienced and helpful people that I find myself, yet again, asking for some advice...

My father passed away last Monday and left a will declaring my mum as executor. She has had very little to do with the household finances and has asked me to handle things. My sister is also helping, but she's up the wall with a house move. We're a close family and are in constant communication, so I envisage no disagreements.

The will states everything goes to my mum, apart from the house. From discussions I had with my dad before his death and reading his will, his half has gone into trust for me and my sister (I believe this was a way to protect half of the property from care home fees). It's written in the will that my mum can live there as long as she wants; not that we would ever even consider, never mind ask, that she sell-up so we get access to money.

The house is worth in the region of £220k and mortgage free.

He had a car, worth about £7k, (no finance) but my mum can't drive and after a few family discussions, my mum will probably pass this over to my sister (I have no issue with this).

My dad had three life insurance policies amounting to £12,500.

He had three pensions, and my mum will be getting a widows pension on these - 50% I think - less than £4k pa.

All his other belongings just pass to my mum.

I'm yet to look at his bank accounts, but understand from my mum they only amount to a few thousand pounds.

All in all, it comes in at under the IHT threshold. So, do I need to apply for a 'grant of probate' if all the people I need to talk to, e.g. bank, insurance, pensions, etc don't ask for it?

My condolences. Your mother, as executor of your late father's estate, needs to apply for grant of probate which gives her documented authority to administer the estate and disperse its assets as your late father willed. It's straightforward, or at least as straightforward as dealing with any bureaucracy these days, assuming the probate office aren't milking the virus all they can and are behind

You may find stuff here of some use: https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/family/guide-to-probate/

 

[EvilRob]

You may well not need to. I'm in a similar situation as you, and I have not needed to.

• House was owned as beneficial joint tenants so just had to apply to Land Registry to have my father's name removed
• Most bank accounts were in joint names
• Each of his savings accounts had different rules about when probate was needed, but for each of them the conditions for requiring probate weren't met
• Life insurance policies generally pay out immediately and beneficiaries are defined by the statement of wishes
• Cars you can just apply to DVLA to have the registered keeper changed.

You might be OK if the trust for the house was set up before he passed away as no action needed there by the estate.

You'll basically have to just check each element of his estate and whether or not the company requires you to get probate to get access to it.

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate

Contact each asset holder (for example a bank or mortgage company) to find out if you’ll need probate to get access to their assets. Every organisation has its own rules.

 

[£15]

Thanks EvilRob (and everyone else, of course) - that is pretty much how I'm approaching it at the moment. I need to call the life insurance companies again today, as the death has now been registered and the paperwork arrived yesterday. None of them mentioned probate.

Car had a private number plate and I'm not sure we're going to be keeping it, but I understand there are a few more forms to fill in if we do.

The Co-Op website mentions banks, etc, have their own thresholds at which probate is required. NatWest is £25,000 and I don't think he was anywhere near this. Other accounts were in joint names and I believe these will simply be put in my mum's name with little fuss.

Trust was set up several years ago.

It's all very daunting, but I'm taking it one task, and day, at a time...

 

[Dyson]

Sorry for your loss

 

[EvilRob]

It's all very daunting, but I'm taking it one task, and day, at a time...

That's all you can do, try not to worry about it too much. Your fathers estate seems to have a similar level of complexity to mine and it really wasn't too bad - a few mornings worth of work to get the majority sorted out.
Feel free to message me if you have any questions I might be able to help with having just gone through it.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Get a good few copies of the death certificate, various bodies will want one when you or your family approach them. These must be "certified copies" not something you have done yourself with a scanner...

 

[Skillmister]

You may well not need to. I'm in a similar situation as you, and I have not needed to.
You might be OK if the trust for the house was set up before he passed away as no action needed there by the estate.


https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate

If half of the property was in trust they won't (shouldn't) be joint tenants so they wont just be able to remove his name

 

[EvilRob]

If half of the property was in trust they won't (shouldn't) be joint tenants so they wont just be able to remove his name

If it was already held in trust and not part of his estate, then perhaps they wouldn't need to - but I'm not an expert hence the "might be OK". Are you?

 

[£15]

I was around at my mum's earlier and couldn't find anything to confirm either way re joint tenants. But as I understand it, it's a case that upon death the trust is created, not before. I'm going to call the solicitors that wrote up the will on Monday.

 

[Quartz]

My father passed away last Monday

Sorry to hear that. A wrinkle that has not been mentioned is any power of attorney. You may be able to act for your mother if you have a PoA, especially if she is under the aegis of the Office of the Public Guardian. Tread carefully and take proper legal advice: the executor is personally responsible for the estate.

Having been through this myself my top tip is to get way more copies of the death certificate than you think you'll need. Everyone and their brother will want proof of death. IIRC we got 20 and while we didn't use them all, it was cheap and it was very convenient to not have to wait for them to be returned.

 

[£15]

I got four. They were £11 each! I thought the first one was free, but it wasn't. That sounds really bad/cheap of me to say.

 

[Chris Wilson]

Four won't go far I'm afraid, I would guess you'll end up needing nearer ten of them. I am sorry to say, just like living, dying is also costly. Every man and his dog still wants a cut, even after you are gone

 

[EvilRob]

I was around at my mum's earlier and couldn't find anything to confirm either way re joint tenants. But as I understand it, it's a case that upon death the trust is created, not before. I'm going to call the solicitors that wrote up the will on Monday.

You can just go to the Land Registry portal and pay £3 to view the title register to check whether they were beneficial joint tenants or not. It's probably probate time if your mum as the executor decides to go ahead and transfer part of the property to a trust.
I may well be wrong but in these cases I sometimes get a sneaky feeling solicitors set up wills in a more complicated way than they need to be just so that you need to purchase more of their services (for example, to set up the trust) later

 

[secretspy]

So sorry for your loss

We had to do probate after my father died and even though there was no inheritance tax to pay, it still had to be completed as part of it. We did it ourselves but it was a ball ache trying to find info as my sister initially dealt with finances and then when it came to probate walked away and left me to try and work out what was what. It took a while but certainly saved money by not going through a solicitors

My uncle passed away last year and i had the fun of doing it all again. Not sure if you have already been made aware but there is now a service you can use online that notifies several places I.e. council, DWP etc. ( I think we got the code you need when we registered the death though.) I think we got 2 or 3 extra copies of the death certificate and have only needed to hand over one. He was with Natwest and they took a photocopy of one of the official copies. I don't think any of the other places we contacted ended up needing to keep one either.

One thing I would say is I did my dad's by visiting the probate office but did my uncle's online. My uncle's seemed to take much longer to come through. This could just be that perhaps they were busy but I got the impression that online it probably got passed through the system to be dealt with as and when someone got to it, whereas visiting the office, someone checked it and stamped it there and then