For those who have applied for probate themselves

[Literallynoonecares]

My Father died last week and we need to apply for probate. We have been told we can do this ourselves and its a really straightforward estate. I just wondered what information we need to gather for us to do this ourselves? There is a will which only has myself and my Brother as joint beneficiaries. My Dad was quite well organised and has all his paperwork and information pretty much to hand so I don't think we will need to go searching for stuff too much, but what do they ask for?

I have seen people mention needing a code or something to show the estate is not liable for inheritance tax? The estate will definitely come under the threshold for that but do we need to prove we have checked first?

We have just had the house valued so we know what that is worth and he has a cheap car. He has minimal savings and money in his current account. No loans/mortgage/debts or credit cards to pay off.

We just want to make sure we have everything we need ready for when we sit and do it and don't get caught out with something we were not prepared for.

Any advice would be very welcomed. I have never done this before and it seems pretty daunting but I don't want to pay thousands to a Solicitor for a straightforward probate application that we can do ourselves.

Thanks

Hi OP, I'm really sorry to hear about your dad 💐

We did probate last year. The probate part was very straightforward indeed. You have probably already seen these, but I found the government help pages very useful.

www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate

You apply online, and need the value of the estate to do so. If it's just a house, a car and small savings accounts that sounds very straightforward. We got 3 different estate agents to value the house. They all came back with the same figure but you can take an average if not. Then look for similar cars on something like Autotrader. Add in the savings/current accounts and you have the estate value. You can deduct certain things like funeral expenses.

It's a horrible time, but the paperwork if there is no IHT involved is simple. Best wishes.

I’m sorry you lost your dad. I did the probate for my mum and it was quite complex (shares and savings and a property - all small in value, so no IHT).

If you are generally good at admin and forms you will manage fine. You need a printer, in my opinion - to print the forms and advise notes).

I kept a copy of the information in an Excel spreadsheet so I could double check it all added up correctly

Thank you so much.
As beneficiaries, I assume either myself or my brother will need to do this?

This information is all really helpful, thank you, and it would seem we already have pretty much the information that we need. We didn't know if we would need to estimate the cost of his other belongings or furniture in the house etc too? I assume they don't ask for that information then? They just need to know the things you mentioned? We have had 3 estate agents who have all valued the house the same, which helps.

Its all a bit overwhelming and its hard to have to think about all this when you are also grieving. Thanks again

I’m sorry for your loss OP.

The website is actually really easy to follow as the pp said, especially if you have all the paperwork already, but it is still daunting when you’re grieving and don’t want to do it at all.

There’s no point in paying someone else as you still need to organise all the information to send to them. We were quoted £3.5k for an incredibly simple estate where the house had already been sold for care fees.

I'm also interested to know how you go about valuing the contents of the house. In our case, when my Mum goes, there will be no inheritance tax, but I know we'll still have to get confirmation (Scottish equivalent of probate) because there will be a house. Will we need professional valuations of contents or will an estimate do?

My dad's just done this, he was annoyed at having to print off a 16 page form and then having to post it rather than emailing it or doing the whole lot online. But once he'd got the info and applied he got his probate cert in less than 2 weeks.

I was wondering this too, if we can just estimate the contents of the house or if we need to get things valued. Not that anything is worth much, its just some furniture and a few pieces that were my Nans. Not even any expensive jewellery or anything.

An estimate is absolutely fine if the value isn't significant and it makes no difference to anyone, such as beneficiaries or HMRC for IHT. So you can just put an estimate of say £1000 on house contents and personal possessions if there are no antiques nor expensive jewelry if the beneficiaries are happy to split it all between themselves and the estate total value is nowhere near a IHT threshold.

Where you need professional valuations is if there are any third party beneficiaries who may challenge the will (i,e. any charity bequests based on %age of estate value), or where the estate could be potentially liable to IHT and HMRC challenge the figures.

If, eg. the total estate is several million (in investments, bank balances, etc) and you try to claim contents and personal possessions were only £1k, it doesn't make sense as someone with huge investments would almost certainly have some possessions worth more than average. Whereas if there is only a few K of bank balances/investments, HMRC wouldn't be "on alert" thinking there'd be a Rembrandt or Rolex watch that's not been declared!

Yes you should include other belongings, but the value of these can be very low. It's what you would get if you sold them today, eg on eBay. Second hand furniture, crockery, books, clothing, even electronics like a TV are not usually worth very much. We went round the house room by room and made a rough estimate, which we included on the IHT form (we had to do this as the estate was over the threshold). You don't have to price up every little thing. I think the form only wanted individual items over £1.5k listing, and in many cases the entire house contents will be worth less than that. In your case you only need a total value. I would keep a list of all the estate assets and values, so you can refer back to it.

You haven't said if you are an executor as well as a beneficiary. Administering the estate is the job of the executor. The will should tell you who this is, and that is the person/s who should be applying for probate.

We had to do it as the will was only a copy and not the original - it is easy to do, but it is taking forever (been with the probate team since early September). If we had the original, it would not have been necessary to go to probate, but we cannot close down the bank account without it.

Thank you, in our case the contents will be worth very little in financial terms. It may be expensive to clear the house. No Rolexes or Rembrandts!

I think it important to know that different organisations require different "proofs" according to their internal rules and also values of bank accounts, insurance/pension balances, etc.

Bank A may be happy with a certified copy of the will to close the bank account and release funds, but Bank B may well require probate, even if the bank balances are similar. Likewise with pension funds, shares/investments, etc.

I've been involved with a number of deaths/wills where probate simply wasn't required because literally no-one needed it, i.e. where property was held jointly so automatically passed to the survivor, likewise with joint bank accounts, likewise with pension funds where a beneficiary had been written into the policy etc.

Likewise, been involved with simple/low value estates where a particular bank or pension firm, or investment platform has been a pain in the arse requiring probate for relatively low values for no obvious reason.

I tend to delay probate applications until I know for certain that they're actually needed. I.e. for larger estates, complicated wills with lots of beneficiaries, etc., or where I know that a particular bank, or pension firm, etc have already been contacted re release of funds but have refused citing their need to see probate. Pointless going through probate if no one actually "needs" it.

If the costs of getting rid of stuff will exceed the value of the stuff, you can simply not put down a value as the "realisation value" is zero (or less than zero) as you can take account of the costs of disposal, whether that's a skip hire, clearance firm, or costs of Ebay selling fees/postage, etc.

Sorry for your loss.
I just put an estimate in there for my Mums house contents of around £10k and put her house value based on others in the area.
It was pretty easy to do, the form looks long but a lot of it is N/A

@taxguru, thanks. We didn't need it when Dad died as everything went to Mum and most things were in their joint names so passed to Mum by survivorship anyway. One ISA that wasn't was transferred to Mum by the bank once she'd signed a form. We did get caught out by Dad's credit card which we thought of as joint, but of course credit cards never are - you have a cardholder and an additional card. He was the cardholder so the account was cancelled and Mum had to get a new account in her own name, which was fortunately reasonably simple and quick for me to sort out for her.

We just did a rough estimate. The thing to bear in mind is you’re looking at the price objects would get if you sold them right now. Usually this is surprisingly little. My parents had some good furniture but we could tell from Facebook marketplace and eBay that it would sell for a song or nothing. Most of it we are paying to have cleared from the house now.

Expensive things were the car, one very specialist sewing machine, a nearly new mobility scooter and some diamond jewellery.

All the rest we valued at just over £2000. That’s furniture, pictures, and household items. We looked at some online tax forums and it seems HMRC regard this as a reasonable estimate for a 4-bedroom house.

Because we fell into the IHT band we had a lot of forms to fill in—12. Usually this isn’t necessary.

When I did mum's I didn't even get an EA valuation as it was clearly well below the IHT threshold. I rang HMRC and they confirmed that as the house was only worth around £120k they didn't need a valuation.
Household contents are worth peanuts as you will find if you try to get house clearance.

All very easy to DIY and the website is very helpful.

Think of it this way op - if you engaged a solicitor you would be doing ALL of the legwork anyway. All they do is input the details into the form and send it off, and you pay THOUSANDS for the privilege.

Once you've got all the valuations, bank statements etc together it shouldn't take more than an evening to complete the form.

I did it when my dad died. It’s basically an exercise in administration and it’s very straightforward. My parents’ solicitor wanted an extortionate £6k to do it, so I did it myself for something like £275.

The website makes it very straightforward and methodical. Get all the paperwork in front of you before you start, I think it took me about an hour, 2 max.

Thank you, that is really helpful information. Yes I am an executor also.

Thank you so much for all the useful info you have all provided. I feel much more confident now that this will be easy enough to do.

Very useful, good luck OP.

Do you always have to apply for probate if IHT is to be paid?

Before you send the will off with the application, get several photocopies of it - but DO NOT remove any fastenings that may have been used - some are stapled together, some use clips down the side. They must remain in place. Then get those copies certified - it’s easy to do, my friend who is anHeadteacher did mine.
Ask for several copies of the probate certificate too.
If the estate is well below IHT thresholds, you don’t need a code from HMRC.

Yes, you complete the IHT forms, then HMRC send you a code to use on your probate application.

Sorry for your loss OP. We applied for probate earlier this year for my late DM. Felt the same as you, overwhelmed and nervous about doing it wrong. It was very straightforward, we had no inheritance tax to pay and the probate office did not require any codes to prove this. We got the original Will back from the solicitor, paid £306 to probate this included four copies of the probate certificate. Sent the paperwork off and a week later it was granted and the day after that the certificates arrived in the post. I was shocked how quick it was. Do as much as you can yourselves , it’s so much quicker than getting a solicitor involved and of course much cheaper.