To be suspicious of DS and inheritance?

[Thisismyprobatequestionsname]

My dad passed away recently. Probate has been granted. My DSis lives near to where he lived. I live several hours away. She has therefore agreed to close accounts in branches near to his house (no branches of these building societies anywhere near me).

She has said that she went into his building society a week ago to close one account and to transfer the balance to our shared account opened specifically for gathering up the estate before distribution. We are both executors.

It’s been a week since she said she has sorted it but no funds transferred yet.

I kind of trust her but she is jealous of me (I slogged in my twenties and thirties to get to my current position of house ownership and financial stability but she had fun. Chased boys. Had kids early. Lived on benefits. Now has retrained and trying to get a good job but been out of the work market for all of her adult life and is now 50, still living hand to mouth and in rented housing - no judgement but my current position is down to very hard work, not luck I owe her nothing). She owes council tax in several of the towns she has lived. Shoplifts on occasion and has this entitled view. She is very volatile and gets angry and can be quite manipulative and abusive.

I don’t think she’d steal the inheritance- she’d be shunned from the family - but a week seems a long time. Im starting to worry.

AIBU to be suspicious or does this kind of thing take over a week?

From memory it does take about six weeks.

Do you mean for probate or for a closing of an account? Probate has been granted. Proof of that provided and the BS instructed to close the account and transfer the funds.

ime closing accounts of someone deceased tends to be slow to complete and sign off all the checks.

Who is the executor? They should have copies of all documentation such as the details from the bank of the last statements and account closures kept in case needed or are questioned later.

My sister and I had to do similar. We just sent each other screen shots of the closing account statements. Have you asked for those?

I’ve just been sorting some of dms .Taking a week- 10 days for payments to come through from banks/ building societies. You should have had to provide identity stuff and do ask for statements.

Once it's gone it's hard to get it back. My dh ds did this. The assets, took money and didn't put it in shared accounts and even sold the car and kept the money.

If you're unsure then ask for proof and put it all via a solicitor

I had to do this recently as executor for my Dad and it took well over a week. I ended up calling the bank and apparently the person dealing with the account closure forgot to tick a box to action the transfer. Might be worth giving the bank a call. I then got it within a week after that.

You are an executor so have equal rights to information.
Why not make a call to the BS and enquire about probate type closures & transfers.

Given what your sister is like, I'm surprised you didn't write a letter to the building society or make a trip to one nearer you. I wouldn't trust her!

Ah. Great. Thank you. I’ll give it another week before worrying then.

I’ve got all the info on what accounts there are etc. just hard to go in in person from so far away.

I don’t think she’d steal from friends and family. I’m literally hours away with DC so too hard to just do it myself. Sounds like it’s not taking overly long which is good.

Shit. Sorry to hear that.

You don’t have to go into branches to do this, it’s all done online by uploading all relevant docs to the bereavement section of the bank/building soc. website.
If the amounts held are less than the (high) limits you generally don’t even need probate, just upload the will and Death certificate.

So you opened an executor account to receive all funds? In my experience, if there's two executors then you both have to be present to create the executor account and you say you live a long way apart. That's unless you surrendered authority to your sister to handle it all.
It may depend on the bank in question but mine has demanded probate even though the estate is much less than the inheritance tax level. The wheels grind very slowly and misinformation is rife! If it's a straight forward will then you shouldn't need a solicitor and they cost a lot of money .

I travelled to register the death, freeze the accounts, plan and attend the funeral and open the joint account. Now back at work so harder to get there. Have DC too. But not sure why that’s relevant.

Sounds like it is likely to take over 5 days so I’m sure it will be fine.

Not using solicitor.