Inheritance Question

[Pilgrimgirl]

Apologies if I'm posting in the wrong place but how does distribution of inheritance work? My dh, along with his sister, are the sole beneficiaries of their mothers will. Sadly, their mother has just a short time to live and not only are we devastated about this but dh and I are very worried about how his future inheritance will affect us. We are not well off, we just about scrape by running our tiny house and his mother will be leaving her house between him and his sister, but has only a small amount of cash in her bank account. Dh and his sister would put the house up for sale as soon as possible, but it could take a long time to sell and we worry about how we would pay for our share of running the house in the meantime, bills, council tax etc. Does anyone know how this works? Does an estate get distributed as soon as probate is granted? Would he then become part owner and responsible for the house? We are spending time worrying about this when we just want to concentrate on his mother.

You should find utilities are put on hold until the property is sold if you need them to be. The house can't be sold until probate is granted. The sooner you get the application in the better as it can take up to 16 weeks for the grant. I'm sorry she's so poorly x

If her whole estate is quite simple, just the house and some savings, then probate / letter of administration can come through pretty quickly. You will need this before you can sell the house. The online form isn't that difficult to fill out either so take a look at that before you pay a solicitor to do something that you are probably capable of doing yourself. Utilities and council tax can be put on hold, you will need to contact each company and explain the situation and they will help you. Dont worry, it isn't as daunting as you might think, but concentrate on helping mum for now.

Thank you so much for the information and the kind words. When you say "on hold" do you mean whilst probate is being sorted out?

when you speak to companies like utility companies after your DH's mum passes, ask to speak to the bereavement team - I found this much easier after my mother died
also if the house is empty inform insurance company and change the insurance to an empty house policy
hope all goes as well as it can under the circumstances

Thank you so much for that information, that's really useful to know about the bereavement team.

There is a probate exemption on Council Tax

https://www.gov.uk/council-tax/second-homes-and-empty-properties

Hi OP, so sorry you and your family are in this situation.

Perhaps the best thing would be for the next of kin to ask a solicitor to deal with probate on their behalf. They will know what to do. Their bill can be paid out of the estate once the house is sold.

Our probate took over a yearly

We got probate in 3 weeks recently. I was very surprised.

The house can't be sold until probate is granted

Yes, but you can put it on the market before Probate is granted.

Absolutely not, will cost thousands, or tens of thousands, for something anyone with a modicum of intelligence can do.

Thanks to everyone who has replied and all your kind words. Dhs sister is the executor along with his mother's solicitor. Even though the house is left to dh and his sister, does it get sold first by the solicitor and then the house sale money split between them after any costs deducted etc or does the house become theirs to sell themselves or do whatever they want with it (they would sell it) straight after probate has been granted?

Some banks will release cash to the executor before probate is granted - just need the death certificate. This money could then be used to cover household expenses. As pp has mentioned probate is pretty straightforward and you would save a considerable sum by not instructing a solicitor.

AgeUK are a fantastic resource, they have online guides like this one www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/legal-issues/what-to-do-when-someone-dies/dealing-with-the-estate/

And phone lines that you can contact for more specific support.

Can you do probate yourselves if a will is held by a solicitor and the solicitor is one of the Executors, or will the solicitor insist on doing it?

@Pilgrimgirl I'm so sorry you're in this situation. I've been through losing my mum recently so hopefully my experience may help. When I switched the house insurance over to an empty house policy it was a condition of the insurance that the house was heated to at least 15 degrees, so you will probably need to keep gas/electric on. You also aren't covered for theft, so make sure no valuables are left in the property. I did the probate myself, it's really straightforward to do, a solicitor quoted £1,900 to do it. It takes about 15 minutes to do as long as you have all the information you need to hand. If the total value of the estate is less than £350,000 you won't have to worry about Inheritance Tax and, if your husband's dad has already passed away you can apply to have any unused portion of his £350,000 added to your mother-in-laws. For example if your FIL's estate was £25,000 you can have the £300,000 added to your MIL's so you will only pay IHT if the estate is worth more than £650,000. This was done automatically when I did my probate application. I've found that most companies are very sympathetic when you contact them regarding a bereavement and most allow you to notify online so you don't have to keep making phone calls while you're upset. There's so much to think about at a time when you're emotions really aren't up to dealing with practical things. Wishing you all the best.

Probate times have vastly improved in the past year, one of ours came through in two weeks in the summer.

You can start marketing before probate is granted but can't exchange or complete.

Yes, it gets sold first then the proceeds split. Solicitor may want to retain what's in the account to pay utilities.

It's actually a very simple process, I've done it twice in a year and didn't need a solicitor

Just to add to this, if the house is being left to direct descendants, as it is in this case, then the tax free allowance increases to £500k per parent, so if DH's mum had been married and widowed, there is a tax free allowance of £1m in total.

any account under 10k can over has to wait for probate

@Pilgrimgirl the process for selling isn’t any different to the normal process apart from probate running concurrently to it and the fact it can’t be sold until probate is granted

Hi we are going through probate at the moment our dad passed away 2 months ago. We've gone down the easier route and have instructed a solicitor to deal with everything due to my brother working very long hours and I'm absolutely burnt out from caring for my dad for the past 5 years. House sold within 2 days to people who understand that we can go as far as up to the exchange of contacts until probate has come back. All utilities are being dealt with by the solicitors along with closing bank accounts etc. I did however fill out the "tell us once" form when I went to register my dad's passing which notifies the government re pensions etc and local authorities ie council tax. I'm sure that you'd save a lot of money doing it all yourself but I'm barely functioning and so opted for the solicitors to take their fees out of the house sale.

@Tiswa any account under 10k can over has to wait for probate

That's not right - it depends on the bank, they all have different limits. One for us was 50k, another was 5k

Thank you again for these latest replies, everyone is being so very kind. Am I correct in thinking that my dh and his sister will not be classed as owning the house as soon as probate is granted? They will obviously only receive the money from it after a sale has gone through, but previous to that, will it just be classed as part of their mother's estate and not actually belonging to them. Will the solicitor transfer their names as being the new owners of it, with the land registry or will it just remain part of the estate until it's sold and the money then split between them?

I'm in the middle of this OP but just wanted to add that banks can issue cheques or transfers to pay for the funeral if you give them the bill. I wasn't aware of this, so paid it myself. Now I'll get reimbursed when probate is granted, which is fine, but had I known beforehand then I'd have got the bank to pay the undertaker directly.

Your husband and sister will own the house once probate has been granted. Do you know if the house has already been registered with the Land Registry? My mum's wasn't as they didn't have a mortgage when the law on registration changed. You can do a first time registration as part of the conveyance and the LR have to expedite it when a sale is involved otherwise a first time registration can take up to 2 years. My mum's bank froze her account until I submitted the bill for the funeral, once that was paid they released the remaining funds to me. I didn't have a solicitor as an executor though, it's just me. I would ask the solicitor if you can do as much as you can on your own to keep costs down. I'd assume they have been added as an executor in case your sister-in-law wasn't able to act as executor but it depends on the wording in the will. My mum's solicitor was named as an executor in the event that there was no-one else to do it, presumably if my mum outlived me.

Please inform your house insurers if the house is laying empty. My fil’s regular insurance company wouldn’t insure the house so we had to go elsewhere.