Executor

[keeptotheleft]

Don't know if anyone knows the legal situation with this question, but here goes anyway. If there are 4 siblings to receive money left in a Will, but one of the siblings lives in a different country to them and would incur bank transfer charges to get their share to them. My question is this, should those Bank charges be taken out of the estate first, or is legally accepted that they pay the fees out of their share?

IMO the money should be divided equally and it is up to the recipient to pay bank charges. Other beneficiaries could no doubt come up with arguments as to why they should get more ......... so just divide equally. This is a common sense opinion not a legal one.

I'm a secretary in a solicitors' probate department.

The bank charges are incurred by the recipient's bank, not ours, and we have no idea what they will be or any control over exchange rates etc. We therefore send equal amounts to everyone but beneficiaries abroad do lose out unless they have a UK bank account we can transfer to. It's not usually a massive amount though.