News1 min ago
DEATH AND MONEY
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If someone dies,leaving a will and ,say around £100K,leaving the estate to 2 family members, (A) could they do this themselves and ignore the will, just splitting the estate between themselves, and the other question is: If it is dealt with by a solicitor (or someone else) ,how do they find out the total of the estate,and how much has been taken out of it (by the deceased person or their family over past years,that is if they bother with such things....I understand that the person could have given about £3,000 to each of several people every year? John
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No, a solicitor does not have to be involved. I have been executor for three wills. I have secured probate and distributed the proceeds in accordance with the will myself without the involvement of any of m'Learned friends.
So the answers are (A) the executors (whether they are solicitors or not) should value the estate, settle any outstanding debts and distribute the proceeds in accordance with the will. What the recipients do with the cash afterwards is a matter for them.
(B) Solicitors (or indeed anybody else acting as executors) have a duty to value the estate as accurately as possible.
If cash has been given away before death that simply reduces the proceeds of the will. Provided those donations have been made legally there is no requirement for those sums to have any effect on the will.
So the answers are (A) the executors (whether they are solicitors or not) should value the estate, settle any outstanding debts and distribute the proceeds in accordance with the will. What the recipients do with the cash afterwards is a matter for them.
(B) Solicitors (or indeed anybody else acting as executors) have a duty to value the estate as accurately as possible.
If cash has been given away before death that simply reduces the proceeds of the will. Provided those donations have been made legally there is no requirement for those sums to have any effect on the will.
Not a legal eagle but.....The two people in your hypothetical case. will need to go through the official process in order to access the funds if they aren't a stack of readies under the mattress. If they are a stack of readies then in theory they could do it but it would be very very illegal. As the death has to be registered and the taxman WILL know, then they would be highly unlikely to get away with it.
I understand that it does happen that a will has not been remade after assets have been disposed of and the assets mentioned in the will no longer exist. I don't now what would happen in that case.
Whoever is the executor has a personal legal responsibility to complete the appropriate process to ensure that all monies owed to the government are paid and that all monies owed to the estate by the government are paid into the estate and distributed. yes they therefore do need to know the ins and outs of all the deceased's financial affairs.
I understand that it does happen that a will has not been remade after assets have been disposed of and the assets mentioned in the will no longer exist. I don't now what would happen in that case.
Whoever is the executor has a personal legal responsibility to complete the appropriate process to ensure that all monies owed to the government are paid and that all monies owed to the estate by the government are paid into the estate and distributed. yes they therefore do need to know the ins and outs of all the deceased's financial affairs.
I have to agree with factor30 here that there is no need to use a solicitor if there are unlikely to be any disputes for a £100,000 estate.
My mother passed away in 2004 and my father passed away in 2009.
Mum left me half of the house which was worth about £400,000 and I got the other half when my father passed away plus about £80,000 in cash ( Building Society accounts etc).
This was done to avoid inheritance tax but the law has changed since my mother's death.
I got the solicitor to apply for probate and she arranged for the house to be transferred into my name.
I just visited the instutions and got the cash OK.
Oddly enough there were no disputes at the time my father passed away but a year later some distant relatives came out of the woodwork demanding the house which I was living in then and I am still living in it.
I thought it was worth the £500 the solicitor charged to see everything was water tight with the house. This was far cheaper than the bank which wanted 3% of the estate plus VAT.
Oddly enough I told these relatives where to go and I have heard nothing since.
Emma
My mother passed away in 2004 and my father passed away in 2009.
Mum left me half of the house which was worth about £400,000 and I got the other half when my father passed away plus about £80,000 in cash ( Building Society accounts etc).
This was done to avoid inheritance tax but the law has changed since my mother's death.
I got the solicitor to apply for probate and she arranged for the house to be transferred into my name.
I just visited the instutions and got the cash OK.
Oddly enough there were no disputes at the time my father passed away but a year later some distant relatives came out of the woodwork demanding the house which I was living in then and I am still living in it.
I thought it was worth the £500 the solicitor charged to see everything was water tight with the house. This was far cheaper than the bank which wanted 3% of the estate plus VAT.
Oddly enough I told these relatives where to go and I have heard nothing since.
Emma
Hi Bednobs
I was not really trying to shoehorn my answer.
Really what I was trying to illustrate was that if there is the slightest doubt use a solicitor to make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed.
Obviously my parents house has now become my home and losing my home would have been serious.
Usually when people demand the estate it does not get to a solicitors stage.
I do know of a case where the offspring lived about 80 miles from the parent and somebody managed to hold up the probate which was inconvenient as the children had to keep visiting the property. The person dropped their case and got nothing but the offspring were very inconvenienced.
Emma
I was not really trying to shoehorn my answer.
Really what I was trying to illustrate was that if there is the slightest doubt use a solicitor to make sure every i is dotted and every t is crossed.
Obviously my parents house has now become my home and losing my home would have been serious.
Usually when people demand the estate it does not get to a solicitors stage.
I do know of a case where the offspring lived about 80 miles from the parent and somebody managed to hold up the probate which was inconvenient as the children had to keep visiting the property. The person dropped their case and got nothing but the offspring were very inconvenienced.
Emma
i could provide a long list of user-names, emma, of people who shoehorn their stories into threads or create odd scenarios, as I'm sure others could. I'm not sure what his/her game is though, as he/she clearly make no attempt to hide his/her wanderings, It's a shame though that they detract from serious issues in genuine threads.
Anyway, I'll leave the thread to continue
Anyway, I'll leave the thread to continue
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