To not want to be executors of a will

[Evisam]

My DH's Godmother (his mum's best friend from school) is 78 years old. She has never married and has no family. DH's mum visits her in London every month as Godmother has been housebound for many years. Godmother's brother (also unmarried) was a neighbour of ours and passed away 10 years ago leaving Godmother his entire estate. Godmother had a solicitor update her will to take her brother off as the sole executor. She decided to ask us to be her next of kin and executors, as DH's mum is also 78 years old. At the time we agreed.

Godmother is going to leave her property to her carer (this will be life changing for her carer and a lovely gesture she sees her everyday). The rest is likely to be split equally between her church and animal charities. We are unlikely to be left anything, and to be honest, we do not need anything.

The estate is likely to be in excess of 800k. She is not leaving a property to a family member (there is none). As executors will we be expected to pay the inheritance tax bill out of our own money, even though we will not be inheriting?

Godmother lives 1 hour away. Do we really want to be clearing a house and sorting an estate of someone I barely know, but I am really fond of, especially when we work full time?

Can you relinquish being an executor and ask a solicitor to deal and sort the lot including the IHT bill?

You do not have to decide now. If the estate is likely to incur IHT most people would get probate help from a solicitor the costs come out of the estate. it is unusual to be named executor but not have any bequest from the estate. If it really bothers you then speak to her. She can always amend her will to make a solicitor the executor then you will not have to sort out anything.

IHT is due on the total value of the estate and has to be paid/accounted for before probate is issued and any distribution is made. Legacies to UK charities in general are exempt from IHT, the first £325K of the estate is exempt as well, so there may be very little IHT due. If the will has been written correctly, the house will be bequested to the carer, and the residual estate (what's left) will be divided according to will.Where it gets messy is if a charity has been left a percentage of the total estate, or a set amount from the residual estate and there is insufficient cash to make the payment. If you renounce the executorship, the will beneficiaries will have to apply for "letters of administration with a will", which essentially will appoint a new executor. the easiest solution is for you to employ a solicitor to do all the work and pay him from the estate. All you need to do then is sign the forms, check the IHT has been paid and authorise the distribution.

You can liquidate shares before probate. We have just done this with my FIL estate. It's very complex so solicitor is doing the legwork. We sold the shares in November and the cash is waiting to pay the IHT bill.
Sometimes it's good to sell the shares as the value can fall so beneficiaries can lose out.

Even if you do hire a solicitor to do most of the work, you’d still need to collate the paperwork, which as a minimum would be finding and passing on details of all accounts and expenses. The solicitor can deal with things like arranging the house clearance,and paying the funeral director. You’d need to check about the IHT, from what I recall it is the executor who has to pay the tax in order to receive the grant, but there must exceptions to this.

@DelphiniumBlue if the executor appoints a solicitor the solicitor pays it on their behalf. So they fill in the forms, the executor signs it and the solicitor sends the funds that they are holding for the estate in their client account. The client account accrues interest just like it would if the executor holds it in an account.
We are deep in the middle of this at the moment. It's a very complex estate and we couldn't do it without a lawyer. It costs a lot but worth it.

The problem is that if most of the estate is tied up in the value of the house, there might not be enough money in the client account to pay off the tax. The tax is payable before Probate can be granted, but the house can’t be sold and the funds released until there is a Grant of Probate.
It’s been decades since I worked in this field, but I think OPs concerns are real.
OP you need to check the actual rules, not rely on the opinion of old timers like me, or lay people, who can only say what happened in their specific circumstances.

So our choices seem to be:

1. Stay as executors, appoint a solicitor and still be involved in finding paperwork, signing forms and taking phone calls about the estate.

2. Renounce the role as executor on death and have nothing more to do with the estate.

3. Speak to Godmother now and ask her to find new executors. This will be tricky as she is housebound and only has carers and church people going in (who charge her for everything. They even asked for petrol money to take her to her brother's funeral).

MIL visits her once a month. 3 hour round journey on the train.

When her brother died, my MIL did a lot of finding the paperwork. His house (jointly inherited from his parents with Godmother) was a large 4 bed family home but like a time warp. Every bill, letter, newspaper from the last 40 years had been kept. MIL had to spend days going through it all to find things for the solicitor. She did not get so much as a thank you from Godmother. She is a bit like Jack Dee, miserable but very witty. You know where you stand with her.

We are down as her next of kin, as she has no surviving family. We are happy to register death, sort the funeral, but being executors for her will sounds like a job too far. My parent's wills were very straight forward and I had probate for both within 6 weeks. No IHT, just shares to transfer and a house to clear and sell.

This is my worry.

She lives in a flat in outer London. I think it is worth 260-300k. It only has one bedroom and it needs upgrading. She probably has 400k in shares (some church people sorted this out from the funds from her brother's estate) and 100k in cash.

Remember, we are not relatives, we will not be beneficiaries. We will get nothing from being executors apart from stress/hassle and a sense that we helped.

Your sole job as executor can be to relinquish your role and to appoint a solicitor to do it instead.

I'm sorry but that is not quite right. I am Executor for my late aunt and there was a hefty amount of IHT to be paid from her estate last year. There was insufficient money in her Bank Accounts to cover it, so I arranged for the IHT to be paid from her share portfolio direct to the HMRC. This was easy to arrange and at no point did I pay it myself or get a loan.

Edited to add that this was prior to obtaining Probate so the sequence is:- pay IHT, apply for Probate, distribute funds.

As executors will we be expected to pay the inheritance tax bill out of our own money

Of course not
It comes from estate
And as executors you can pay a specialist probate accountant or solicitor to deal with it all and pay their fees from the estate

This. I wouldn’t take this on under these circumstances just hand it over to a solicitor.

Nope its a all or nothing option

If the OP appoints a solicitor she has the legal responsibility of the role and the solicitor will act on behalf of the OP as client

If she chooses to not act it is up to the people named in the will to organise probate by either doing it themselves or getting a solicitor to act on their behalf.

So if there are 3 beneficiaries, carer, church and animal charity, how do 3 of them appoint a solicitor? Or is the solicitor who holds the will the new-appointed executor?

I have just been looking at a file we have called 'Godmother'. We have her solicitor's name, address and phone number. We know the names and phone numbers of her keyholders and the key safe code. She has no funeral plan in place and has no specific requests. She has lost her birth cert, but we have her place of birth address and DOB.

This thread has been so useful for explaining our options. Thank you

If you renounce you don’t get to choose how the beneficiaries proceed. If she dies and DH is on will as executor you should just contact the solicitor to advise your renouncing as to not Inter meddle.

You don't need a birth certificate to arrange a funeral; however, if you do need one for anything, they are easy to apply for on the General Register Office website gro.uk. I think it costs about £7.50.,

If you decide not to act it becomes a Not My Problem issue.

Her solicitor will not act alone as like with you there would be no fee payable and professional risks attached.

If the carer is getting the bulk of the money its in her best interest to get the letter of Administration which would allow her to act as if she had been appointed the executor.

The carer is likely to know you are stepping aside earlier that the church or charity.

But if the church have been involved in the share she may have discussed her plans and they will be on notice of her death and ask you directly re plans and if there is ½mil in play they will ask🙃

Some of the work can be done now while she is alive by having her collect the information on her shares and bank accounts and house deeds and lodge a copy with her solicitor. She will have done this even if only a back of the envelope style when writing her will.
Plus she can do a list of any people /businesses she owed money to.

There is a method of placing ads for monies owed and a (private) forgotten money website which helps people find "lost" money (bank accounts/pensions)

With the funeral she can do simple letter I want a church service with flowers and singer and posh coffin and be burried beside DB or whatever (< that a thing if she paid for her DB service via his will and he has a plot she "owns" it and its up to the plot rules if she can be added) she would not have to buy plan as its accepted that a "normal" cost will be paid from her estate.

(As a last option the LA has a legal obligation under public health to dispose of human remains.)

If she is 100% sure she will leave the bulk of her estate to the carer the carer should be appointed to act.
And if she changes her mind she can appoint someone else.

One thing I would say is that if you appoint a solicitor to do the work then its 'competitive'

If the testator appoints XYZ & Co it isnt and you have no leverage over costs etc

Never allow a church or charity to be executor and beneficiary of a will. It will be a nightmare and the poor carer will be at the bottom of the heap.
You will not have to pay inheritance tax out of your own money! What makes you think that?
You can employ a solicitor but be prepared to pay them a chunk of the estate. That might be the best solution.

The problem with being an executor is that beneficiaries can all see the assets (cars, house etc etc) but they usually don't know about the car loans, personal debts and mortgages that see behind them.

It may take a month or two before the executor is able to act, during which time the beneficiaries are already "mentally spending their inheritance ". When is shown that the inheritance is minimal (or even negative) after debts are paid off they tend to get very angry towards the executor.

A friend of mine acted as executor for an Aunt, there was no liquid cash so she had to fund valuers etc out of her own money. The final straw was when two beneficiaries that were disappointed when told of the lower than expected inheritance accused her of defrauding the estate for her own benefit.

So she said that if they thought they could do a better job then they should do it and walked off the job, even though it left her £5k out of pocket.

After a lengthy legal process to get the executors changed and the two beneficiaries handing the entire matter to a firm of solicitors, the legal fees took out the remaining value of the estate, leaving the beneficiaries with absolutely nothing, my friend £5k out of pocket and family members (not immediate) that no longer talk to each other.

Yes that is very true. We are lucky in that the investments and savings are much more than half the estate so cover the IHT bill.

My two siblings and I were executors of our parents’ wills, we handed it over to a solicitor because one sibling hadn’t spoken to the others for years and was abusive. The other sibling and I simply refused to do it.
The solicitor’s expenses came out of the estate.
As it turned out my parents died within weeks of each other and the estate of my father was very complicated- 32 different bank/building society/shares etc, many of which had been taken over by other banks etc over the years. I wouldn’t have known where to start!
Personally I would never want to be an executor, DH and his sister had enough trouble with their DPs’ very simple wills.

The IHT is paid from the estate before anyone gets anything (unless the only money is in the house then it gets complicated)
Get a solicitor to sort it all out
Their charge will also come out of the estate.
You dont pay a thinh
The funeral, if not already paid for can also be taken from her bank account.

You will be exoected to sort her funeral.
But you dont have to
Best thing to do is emcourage her to sort it all out before. What coffin she wants, songs, hyms etc.
Kind of flowers where she wants it. She can then add it to the will / give you all the details so it is alot easier

If there is money in banks / savings etc the IHT will come out of that.
If there is not enough money in banks the house may need to be sold

I believe that a charity can be named as an executor if they are receiving a significant amount of the estate. Might be worth checking?