Probate granted - is anyone about to offer practical advice please?

[BottleShipDown]

Hi there. Firstly, I am sorry for your losse/s. If you are able to answer my questions and you are looking at this thread then you have experienced a bereavement - which is never easy regardless of the circumstances. 💐

My dad suddenly died a couple of months ago. He didn’t leave a will. Just me and my sister. We applied for Grant of Letters of Administration which is the no Will equivalent of probate. It’s been granted and we have the letters.

We are selling dads house but it’s only just about to go on the market. He has three bank accounts. My sister and I have opened a new joint account to gather everything in. My sister could really use some of her share ASAP.

I live a six hour drive away from where my sister and dad live. I also work and have DC so it’s hard to spend much time there.

So I have a couple of questions;

1: Do we need to both be present at the banks to move the money into our joint account and close dads accounts?

2.can we close his accounts and use our joint account for the house sale or do we need to keep his account open for the house sale stuff?

3: can any of it be done by post or phone? I’m conscious that the bulk of the hands on practical stuff has fallen to my sister so if I can do this bit remotely then that would be great.

Thank you so much to anyone that replies, when you are likely to be grappling with enough tricky stuff yourself. 🙏

The accounts need to be closed. Most banks have a bereavement team so phone them and they will run through the process to transfer the balances and close the accounts.
I believe you can make interim payments to beneficiaries but make sure you hold back enough money to pay any bills for the house or other costs.

Good tip about bill money. Thanks.

You can do it all remotely. My siblings and I have been executors for both parents. We all live in different countries, but it has been fine. 90% can be done by email/phone, and the rest can be done by post, which is a slight pain when you've got to send it internationally, but still doable.

I agree with @Berthatydfil that you should be very careful about distributing any funds until you are sure all debts are paid. In particular, be careful about any pension/benefits payments that were made automatically after your Dad's death -they will be clawed back but it sometimes takes months to be notified.

Sorry for your loss OP.

I was a joint administrator for my mother's estate about 18 months ago.

HMRC went backwards and forwards with her income tax/final account so definitely keep some money back.
Don't forget to tell the council that the owner has died (you should get a council tax discount for 6 months). With winter approaching you should probably have the building partially heated to avoid burst pipes.

Pretty much every bank/building society will have a bereavement team (some better than others).

Thank you so much 🙏

Bank bereavement teams can vary a lot. I had such trouble with Barclays that I'd close any account with them, even if you opened the joint one there!

If your father's estate is above the inheritance tax threshold then the tax will need to be paid from the estate.

You either need to drain down any water in the house or keep heating on frost protection settings. Someone need to visit regularly and if no-one is living there for more than 30 days you need specialist (more expensive) insurance. If no heating run a dehumidifier, that would need to be plumbed in.

Council's vary on council tax, while most give some discount they dont have to do so.

Excess pension payments will be clawed back but if you notified them promptly that wont be a massive amount. You may be able to claim back overpaid tax as he had bank accounts so potentially income that was taxable.

If you have not disposed of house contents yet think about what needs to go and when.

I am sorry for your loss.

not probate related really, but using the ‘tell us once’ service was really handy to inform DVLA, council tax, pension, passport office etc that mum had died.

Definitely ask if there’s bereavement teams to help deal with it all; we’ve found everyone really good so far, apart from DVLA who were horrific.

My father died earlier this year and my experience with Halifax and Santander where he held accounts was very positive.

I rang up the central bereavement team number the day I got the death certificate and went through the details. I had to upload copies of the death certificate and my id (it was handy to have a scanner but they would have accpted photos from my phone) and the money was then transferred to my account within 2 days for the Halifax; my sister didnt have to get involved at all, nor did I have to visit the branch which I was expecting to do. This was very useful as we could pay all the expenses directly and also pay back pension payments (father died at the end of the month so several payments for the following month had already been made)

With Santander its a bit more complicated as the balance is over £50,000 and so they want to see the grant of probate before they will release the money but we are expecting that to come through shortly and will then have the money within a day or two. Its been useful to keep the Santander open to pay in cheques from utilities and other companies paying refunds some of which insist on making it payable to the account holder rather than to me.

Thank you all.

Will we need to keep his account open for things like utility rebates once house is sold or can we deal with all of that from our accounts please?

tanyasmil oh thank you. I can see you have answered the question.

Make sure the house is insured, you may have to reinsure or pay extra if no one is living there.

Tell all the utility companies.