My aunty died recently and my Mum is taking care of her estate (and I'm helping). The aunty was single (divorced and no children) and didn't leave a will. There wasn't the expectation there was much of an estate to deal with - no property or significant possessions - but it turns out she had nearly £50k in the bank.
(We're keeping our powder dry and not all booking cruises because she's had mental health resulting debt problems in the past I and I wouldn't be surprised if someone somewhere has a claim on some of that)
The sum is enough to have to go through Probate.
My mum is one of 7 siblings, 3 of whom pre-deceased the aunty so before the probate issue was raised the surviving siblings were thinking they might split (what they thought was a smaller) sum between the three survivors plus aunty's ex-husband. Although divorced they were always still close and he's been her main supporter/carer in her later years and in practice if not in law her closest family.
Probate kind of takes that decision out of their hands though and as I understand it splits the money into equal chunks - a chunk for each surviving sibling and three chunks each distributed between the offspring of the deceased ones.
Now.... heres the question. There is still the wish to include the ex-husband in this split - but not all the beneficiaries are part of that conversation yet. And some of the decedents of deceased siblings are quite distanced from the rest of the family and probably neither know or care about the situation.
What is the level of agreement that all all the beneficiaries need to reach to carve off a percentage of the estate before they split the rest? - basically to treat the ex-husband as a sibling and split the estate 7 ways instead of 6 - Would it need to be a 100% consensus - [i]all[/i] the living siblings and [i]all [/i]the children of the deceased siblings? Or a majority? Or is it a question that can't be asked?
As soon as Probate is granted then you'll be hearing from the DWP Recovery From Estates Debt Management.
This department was set up by the millionaire Ian Duncan Smith and included in its remit is trying to get money from the estates of dead people on the off chance that any benefits have been overpaid.
Be careful, very careful. Beneficiaries of the estate can not be paid until DWP is able to claim back any overpayment.
I'm currently dealing with this, they're wanting info going back to 2009.
My contempt for them and their accusing me of fraud letters knows no bounds. Absolute scum bags. 👿
Thanks for that heads up- I very much doubt this is going to be a quick process - and I doubt that sum is going to remain intact either.
I think I'll manoeuvre myself between the shit and fan in that case - my mum easily gets wound up by that sort of thing.
'Deed of Variation' can be used (with consent of interested parties) but I'd be thinking that only applies to an existing will 🙁
So even if it can be done to override probate, it may mean getting the consent of folk who will in all likelihood see their share reduce.. 🙁
You may be interested to hear about a friend of mine whose late parent was under the inheritance tax threshold - the DWP took over a year to investigate.
it may mean getting the consent of folk who will in all likelihood see their share reduce..
With such a wide split I think in many cases - partularly children of the deceased siblings the individual split/sum for them will be quite small - enough that the difference will hardly be felt
Mum is one of 7, some of those siblings had 4 kids so the difference between 1/4 of 1/6th of the estate and 1/4 of 1/7th isn't particularly stark - but the outcome for that extra beneficiary is.
You also probably don't want to go down the route of clubbing together to donate some of your share, as this may be classed as a Potentially Exempt Transfer. Unless it's below £3000 (each), and even then it should be manageable.
So just proceed with probate and then re-align afterwards.
Don't forget that all debtors need to be paid before beneficiaries so this could mean utility bills etc.
A
s soon as Probate is granted then you'll be hearing from the DWP Recovery From Estates Debt Management.
I got one, took ages to sort out, had to attend a tribunal,
Still had to pay into the condem biscuits fund though.
Deleted the rest
oh and if she had any money in a certain spanish gang of bankers, expect to wait forever, horrible people to deal with.
*check out legal fees and costs before doing anything, ime you're probably going to be f ed (sorry mods but if you've had to deal with a death, a will, the legal profession and HMRC I suspect you may not moderate that statement)
(*Option A: Use the system and legal 'profession' to get what you all agree on - time consuming and king expensive
Option B: rely on beneficiaries integrity to do the right thing - you may find that integrity goes right out of the window
)
FYI. In Scotland a deed of variation (changing beneficiary of will after death from dad to son) = £5k *discounted to £4k
Cheers all
I have the basis for a plan - the timescale is the important thing - with the funeral next week I wanted to preempt any gun-jumping, things would only get trickier if people have started to spend the money in their head.
FYI. In Scotland
I should have added - this is all happening south of the border
CG - The gf experienced something similar when her grandfather died. I forget the ins and outs of it but basically he died a week after he received his first pension payment. The DWP then tried to claim back the month stating that he had not had full use of it and was therefore not entitled to it. There were also other issues but the lack of compassion shown was deplorable, it took over a year to sort out, a year when everyone involved wanted to move on with thier lives.
This is someone who had worked solidly for 40years paying all his taxes etc. to then have someone at the end of the phone telling his children he wasn't entitled to one months worth pension was infuriating! 👿
You also probably don't want to go down the route of clubbing together to donate some of your share, as this may be classed as a Potentially Exempt Transfer. Unless it's below £3000 (each), and even then it should be manageable.
This is wrong, you can organise it so a variation is respected for tax purposes so that the new split is treated as if it was made by the original will or intestancy. See [url= http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cto/customerguide/page21.htm ]here[/url]. This also suggests it is possible to vary an intestancy but I have no experience of this.
ekul - that must have been pretty upsetting but afraid that I'm not surprised.
When this new department was set up and headed by the millionaire IDS, the majority of the population must have thought it was a great idea. In essence it was but they failed to inform the public that it would also include claiming back any overpaid benefits from the estate of dead people.
Furthermore, this department has exceeded its target of claiming back overpaid benefits. No mention is made of staffing costs obviously.
For me, this whole process has been extremely distressing and it's not over yet. 😐
Daft point really - but just designed to show how crass politics has become - IDS isn't actually a millionaire but does live in a house worth £2m that isn't his - as is the case with most people who work for the Royal Family.
Ed Milliband, who likes to promote the class war angle at every push with the constant references to Toffs, inherited a property through a series of trust arrangements designed to reduce the tax liability and now owns a house that's currently worth 2.7m according to Zoopla - and had a mortgage of less than £400K in 2012..
Rachel Reeves, the shadow minister for Work and Pensions used to work in Banking as an economist and is potentially part of the nonsense that caused the recession and subsequent need to trim the benefits bill.
So which of these people would be "better" to run the department? The Banker, the millionaire leader of the Labour party, or the person who lives in a £2m house but doesn't own it?
So which of these people would be "better" to run the department? The Banker, the millionaire leader of the Labour party, or the person who lives in a £2m house but doesn't own it?
I'd rather judge IDS by his actions than his circumstances -and in his actions he's sold himself out. The thoughtless actions of his colleagues don't surprise me - I can understand that they're acting in the interests of the people they're 'on the side of' and don't know or care to understand the consequences of their policies and their rhetoric whether they are intended or otherwise. IDS has absolutely no such excuse. He understands the situation - his kind words were used by CDM to detoxify the tory party's image and get them elected then as soon as they we're IDS has been neutered, has totally shitcanned the people he'd spent a substantial period of his career understanding and supporting and has become nothing more than a glove-puppet.
But I can't possible despise him more than he must despise himself right now.
But I can't possible despise him more than he must despise himself right now.
Pretty sure he doesn't care at all. His policy towards the disabled seems to be to either starve them to death or drive them to suicide. Cutting the deficit one death at a time.....