DS needs to sort out his father's estate, advice needed please.

[zeebra]

My Ds's father has died leaving no will. He has cleared his property (which wasnt his father's own) so that is all sorted. He has now got to deal with his estate. My DS is like me in that if he is not sure what he needs to do, he is very good at putting it off and not doing anything! Combined with the emotional side of things, I feel that unless I find out what needs to be done, it will be left undone. My DS is barely an adult so I am happy to help him but really need advice on what to do.
There may be quite a bit of money (as DS's Dad had received an inheritance not many years ago) but was a terrible spender who had addictions so there equally may be none or very little. We have a few bank cards etc but really very little else to go on. Can anyone advise what we need to do as I am pretty clueless but want to help my son and feel like I am offering the correct advice? DS should be the only beneficiary by law so it is down to us to sort and although an unfortunate thing has happened, I would like to find out if there is any money for him to use for a deposit for a flat in a few years. I would appreciate any advice that may help us please.

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate/if-theres-not-a-will

This should help.
It sounds tough. Hope you are both OK.

any reason why you have not gone to a solicitor, and put it in their hands ?
if there is money in the estate, the fees will come out of that.
also funeral costs, though if you/your son has already paid those i'm not sure if you can be reimbursed.
solicitor will advise.
all the best.

That sounds incredibly hard to deal with.
Which have a great guide to what to when someone dies which you can get here and their probate checklist is incredibly useful.
Has he used the 'Tell us once' service to tell all the government services?
There is a free service called MyLostAccount which your ds can use to check for any accounts that you don't know about, but if there are some he does, then if he searches 'bereavement service barclays' or whatever it will give the number to call. They are incredibly helpful on the bereavement lines and he'll need to send the death certificate in to each one.
I found it helpful to run a spreadsheet when dealing with my parents estate so I could note who I had contacted, where certificates were, and all the bits to value the estate so I could do the IHT return then the probate

It has a section for when there is not a will.

Are you in England/Wales tho? Different rules if not.

I agree, this needs to be dealt with by a solicitor. Please don't let him try and do this by himself, there are all sorts of pitfalls and he could fall foul of the law.

agree with
neitherofthem · Today 19:13
IHT is complicated, might incur penalties if not dealt with in a timely manner.
also cannot assume no other poss inheritors; searches or public notices may be needed.
just get a solicitor.

Thank you for your help. I will look through the replies and hopefully the process will seem a little less daunting when armed with a little more information.

If there's no property then it's unlikely that the estate will be worth enough to be liable for inheritance tax.

OP there is no need to use a solicitor unless your DS really doesn't want to deal with himself. Right now he just needs to contact the banks to work what value there is in the estate, then go from there.

OP says there may be quite a bit of money

Once he has an idea of the estate value, he can take it from there and make a decision about instructing a solicitor. I wouldn’t do it just yet, just in case there is only a few thousand left from your ex’s inheritance - the solicitor will (rightly) still need to be paid in those cirsumstances.

AgeUK have brilliant resources for dealing with bereavement, this is a good guide

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/globalassets/age-uk/documents/factsheets/fs14dealinggwithannestate_fcs.pdf

I wouldn’t use a solicitor as they just fill in the probate form which is something you can easily do yourself.

If you telephone the probate office, they are incredibly helpful and will help guide you as to which firms etc need to be filled in

IHT find out how much cash there is left as others have said it’s got to be a large amount before it’s paid - think of amounts over £150k in cash and possibly more

Hey OP. It's not always that complicated if there's no property involved. I used to work in the bereavement department at a bank and some cases were relatively simple if it was just a bank account.

You won't need probate if the estate only consists of cash and personal belongings and is under a certain amount. It's been a few years since I worked there but it used to be a £5,000 limit for Barclays, but £50,000 limit for Lloyd's, and other banks were different.

Your son will have to ring the bank and ask to report the death, once he's cleared security he'll be able to ask them to speak to you on his behalf if he would prefer. They'll then ask a very long series of questions and then process everything their end, they'll need the death certificate but you'll be able to go into a branch and ask them to scan it for you.

If it's not over the probate amount and there's no will they will establish that your son is next of kin and release the funds to him. But once you make a call they'll be able to tell you if you need probate or not.

Use the tell us once service too, that sends notifications to loads of relevant banks / services and they will then contact your DS if they need to x

The reasons not to use a solicitor are many! Most people don't use them. I've never met someone who was glad they used one - usually it's held the process up for a long time

So just fill out the forms yourself! Quicker and cheaper.

Has he got copies of the death certificate? Has he used the Tell Us Once service?
Has he checked to see if there is a will? National Wills Register.
He needs to put an ad in The Gazette and local newspaper to try to locate any debtors.

There are plenty of useful guides online. Here's another one
https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/family-and-care/death-and-bereavement

Then just start slowly making a list of assets and debts. Funeral costs can be paid from the estate as well - not sure who paid for that?

Sorry for your loss