anyone know anything about Barclays acting as executors for a will

[MrsNortham]

Hi

my MIL died recently and it's just come to light that she has left everything to dh in her Will. He has no other family and she always said she would do this, however it states on her will that Barclays will act as executors to the will.

We are meeting them tomorrow and have been told to bring an example of each outgoing she had (debts, utilities etc) her tax papers and any pension papers, her car papers, her bank account details and details of any savings

We have been told to buy 6 copies of the death certificate for them and that basically they will dispose of the house, and dh will be due anything remaining

Is this right? Can we clear the house, there is obv photos and thing with sentimental value that dh would like to keep, and do we get no say over what happens with her furniture and possessions?

Online on there brochure it says that they charge a fixed sum of £6000 for doing this for deaths after Jan 2011...but in the paperwork we found with the copy of the will it stated their fee would be 3.5% would this be the price do you think?

What should we ask, our heads are all over the place, and when I googled Barclays executors it brought up a lot of horror stories about them and how they take advantage of people

TIA

You can remove them as executors if you wish
Your DH could deal with it all himself or appoint an alternative person

If it is possible to remove them as executors, you'll find it much cheaper to do some of the work yourself and use a solicitor for transferring the house and anything you can't manage.

Can you?
How would I go about doing that? I thought as she'd appointed them in her will that was it, if it's not we'd prefer to do it ourselves as I've already sorted most of her paperwork as she was mega organised it was all in order, so they wouldn't even be doing that much work anyway for such a large fee

Basically the beneficiaries of a will can decide together to vary that will - make changes to it

My understanding is that the file should go to the auditor of court who will set the fee so question that when you meet Barclays tomorrow.

Post in legal or ring a solicitor for some advice - The house and possessions are your DH's property not theirs. The will is so simple you will easily be a able to do it your selves.

They are very pricey and very, very pernickety IME. Went over everything with a fine tooth comb, took ages and did far more than solictor friends said was necessary.

Incredibly expensive.
Your DH should get them kicked off and make himself executor. Sounds very simple.
Wouldn't touch them with a barge pole.

Why doesn't your DH speak to his solicitor and just get advice on what he needs to do to get rid of them> That will cost him a max of £200 and probably less.

£6,000 sounds very overpriced for a straightforward UK estate. I paid less than that to a big law firm to deal with DH's fairly complicated estate with assets in several countries.

If all her affairs are in order, and your DH is the only beneficiary, it would probably be very straightforward to do it yourself. There are some good books on wills and probate (the Which? one is very user friendly) and the website for the probate service has downloads for all the forms you need.

Banks will charge you loads and take ages; solicitors might be better, but really unless there are complications, if you are reasonably competent at dealing with paperwork, you should be fine doing it yourself, or at least preparing all the financial information and just getting the solicitors to do any form filling/filing you are not sure about - you should be able to negotiate an hourly rate for that, rather than a flat fee.

Don't hand over any paperwork to them as they may start work on it and charge you for their "services to date" if you decide to remove them.

If it is straight forward you should be able to manage it yourself with assistance from a local solicitor and it should be waaaaaaaay cheaper than Barclays.

You will need to get them removed however and replaced by your dh or someone else he chooses. Truly, do not use Barclays, they will milk it for every scrap of fees, doing things in great detail, that is probably overkill given that there is just one sole beneficiary (your dh).

Get googling and save yourself £££'s