Paying for things before probate

[MyDadIsTheGreatest]

My brother & I are joint executors & beneficiaries of my dad's will. The estate includes his house.

We need to pay the funeral directors, whichever giving their invoice to the bank, who will freeze my dad's account.

How do we pay for things like utilities, insurance etc between freezing the account and getting probate?

We've contacted the various utilities to switch to usage only and made arrangements for empty house insurance - but they will presumably need paying for somehow before we get probate.

I’m not a lawyer

When my ex died our sons’ solicitor informed the utilities, council etc and nothing had to be paid until probate. As far as I know the only thing they paid themselves was the empty house insurance

Same when my mother died.

We didn't need probate to release the funds from DF's bank account, we set up an executor bank account and the funds were transferred over. We were therefore also able to receive funds in (small amounts of pension due etc) and pay out various expenses as we went along.

It's made the process much easier.

Ask the bank if they definitely need probate.

Contact them all (their bereavement teams) and explain that you won't have access to funds until probate has been granted.

As you may be aware, banks will usually pay funeral directors directly from the deceased person's account on presentation of their invoices and the death certificate. Probate not needed for this.

In fact, many banks do have a £50k threshold below which they don't need probate, so check with the person's bank there. You would need to provide the death certificate, some ID and probably a copy of the will declaring you as the executors and beneficiaries. It doesn't take long then and the money will be transferred to you both.

Thanks for asking this question. The admin when someone dies is awful at a time when you are often least able to cope with it.

When my mum died, her funeral was paid directly from her bank, I paid for 1 year’s house insurance (only about £100) and utilities just billed me monthly and carried it over, which was then paid off when her house sold. Same with her credit card and outstanding phone bills. the debts were handled by a debt collection agency but they were very nice - phoned me for updates about once every 3 months.
Just contact the bereavement team for each provider and they will set it up for you.

The bank will pay the funeral directors bill. As long as the bank account balance is below the bank’s floor limit (most are around £50k) they will pay out based on the death certificate, will and I’d from the executors confirming who they are. You can then set up an executors account to cover bills and expenses and collect in any funds. Often ultimates etc. will accept deferred payments if funds aren’t available. The only one you must sort out is insurance for the property you mustn’t leave that uncovered. You can get specialised insurance to cover empty properties during probate.

Hand everything over to the solicitor dealing with the estate, don't feel that you have to sort everything.

When MIL died last year we arranged for the funeral Bill to be paid via her bank account as solicitor was closed for the festive period but all other paperwork and bills etc were handed over to the solicitor. Anyone who asked us to provide a correspondence address were given the solicitors address.

Yes, I’m just starting to go through it and the paperwork is overwhelming when you least feel like dealing with it. Also, the solicitor fees for probate seem to vary so much (and hugely expensive) that it’s not easy to decide who best to go with.

I just paid for everything and then got it back at the end. Was a lot of money though . I dealt with my ex husbands estate on behalf of my son ( his only child ). I wasn’t an executor but acted as their proxy and I dealt with probate myself to save the £000 a solicitor would have charged. It was horribly stressful and I work at director level in financial services , so am used to complex rules and paperwork , but still found it baffling at times. Wasn’t a huge or complex estate but still took some sorting out.

I believe that most utility firms will wait for the monies if you ask. I hope you can get it sorted , it’s such a difficult time. I recall that I had to pay 50% of the funeral cost before they would even book it in , just as well I was able to call on the funds to do so. Sending you strength.