The tenants in common ownership is what you need. By default this will be a 50/50 split of ownership. This is backed up by a deed of trust which sets out the beneficial ownership of the property. You also need to make Wills which set out in detail what happens if one of you dies. Unmarried couples cannot inherit from each other without wills in place.

Just to correct one of the comments above a tenant in common cannot sell their share of a property without the consent of the other owner or a court order giving permission so you are pretty safe on that score.

If you want a proper chat message me, details in profile.

Hope that helps

@ton I had a similar situation, I had been free of AF since my ablation in 2019. Got a chest infection about six weeks ago and had an attack, really severe and lasted about ten hours. I was hospitalised whilst they got me stable. Saw my specialist at Papworth yesterday and he said it was a one off caused by the Chest Infection, highly likely to reoccur unless I get another infection. Gave me a clean(ish) bill of health, stopped one of the meds that the doctor in the ED had prescribed, got a lecture about how losing some weight was the best possible thing to do and was basically told to get on with life and not to worry. I have to say I was hugely reassured, I thought that another ablation might be on the cards,

We live opposite a community centre which has a bowling green next to it. It has a large well lit and looked after car park. The ‘problem’ is that to get to the entrance to the centre from the car park you have to walk round the side of the building, three sides if you are going to the bowling green.

That is far too far for most people when they can park in front of our houses, block the road and generally create a slalom course for the residents. We have a home for severely disabled people at the end of the road too which regularly needs ambulance access.

The worst culprits by far are all the retired majors who play bowls and are far too important to use a public car park and walk an extra 30 yards.

They are closely followed by the weight watchers crew who waddle up to the front door, block the road by parking as near as humanly possible to the front door, get weighed and waddle off. Most of whom would prefer a weighbridge to drive onto which could just deduct the weight of their car tell them they have lost a pound this week and save them all the additional exercise that they get from their walk to the scales.

No bikes this time, just sightseeing by foot and enjoying the New Year Festivities (If we get to go at all Germany is not looking good from a Covid standpoint at the moment).

We are taking the tandem and the motorhome to Holland next year though.

Even as I type this I am realising that I am probably the perfect demographic for a river cruise.

Thanks for your answers so far, it is a smaller boat only 120 passengers but chartered by a British company so most people on there will speak English.

Ride across America, Visit New Zealand, Round the World Cruise.

That’s pretty much my bucket list. I am sure it will change if my kids ever present me with some grandkids.

Dry Roast Peanuts and Plain Chocolate Digestives (49p from Lidl or Aldi)

Like most government departments the Probate Service is very hit and miss at the moment. Some grants are coming through within the normal 4 – 6 weeks, others are taking 9 or 10 months and there seems to be no rhyme nor reason to it.

The OP has enlisted the help of a solicitor, so there shouldn’t be much for them to do, beyond providing the initial information to the firm they have instructed. As far as timescales go the solicitors have to allow 6 months from the date of the grant before they distribute the estate. This is to allow time for any claims against the estate to come forward and to protect the named executors against liability.

As the OP is both Executor and beneficiary they might waive this. But in any case we always advise that the whole process will take between 8 & 12 Months especially where there is property involved.

If you are interested I have done a video which answers the most frequently asked questions. https://vimeo.com/524829598

I just took the plunge and bought my wife an eternity ring (after 36 years) the ‘but it doesn’t feel like an eternity yet’ excuse finally wore a bit too thin.

We had a day out in the jewellery quarter in Birmingham, spoke to a few people and finally found a store that we liked and felt we could trust. We went down the custom route in the end and got a little spendy but not outrageous. The advantages over the high street were cost, choice, expertise and the design service.

We ended up with these guys https://sonnysjewellers.com but there are dozens to choose from. Well worth the day out.

I did Peterborough to Redditch – 93 miles each way for about a year, it was a temporary contract. Ended up staying over a couple of night per week because it was just too much travelling.

Got offered the job permanently at the end of the contract, but my wife didn’t fancy moving the family to Redditch.

Have you got a Power of Attorney for Health & Welfare if not you need one, and hopefully she is not too far into her dementia journey to be able to consent to one. You will need a financial one too in order to pay the bills and represent her in any financial assessments.

We went through this two years ago with my Dad, visit lots, turn up unannounced and ask for a look around. The good ones won’t mind (I do realise that Covid makes this more difficult). Go into the communal areas, if there is a TV on too loud and a semi circle of chairs arranged around it, walk away.

Make sure the specialist dementia care unit is separate and secure, there always seems to be an escape committee in my Dad’s home. One of the residents is particularly convincing and has duped new visitors into letting her out more than once.

My preference is for a more modern home, as the facilities tend to be purpose built, rather than bodging an old manor house to try and make it fit with modern H&S rules.

Get a care needs assessment done by the Local Authority before you have any conversations about finances.

Finally from a location point of view, you seem to be thinking about it in the right way, who will be able to see her and when. She will need to be in a place where she can get regular visitors.

The good news is that it is possible to live well with dementia. It is harder for you than it is for her.

Good luck with it all.

The only one I have ever found to be acceptable is the Brewdog Punk AF, although I like the idea of the Guinness 0.0 so will be giving that a try.

We used Expert Medical when coming home from France, they were pretty good.

Just logged into an online awards ceremony to find out if my firm will be the Best Will Writing Firm and I will be the Best Will Writing Paralegal at the National Paralegal Awards. To be a finalist in both is moderately pleasing. To win would make me very pleased.

Should find out in about an hour.

Watched it last night – loved it as a first episode, felt familiar and I think it will develop well.

I’m in

Probably the only time I will appear in the top 5!

@cougar Smarty did beat them into a cocked hat until last week. Their fair usage policy for roaming is now restricted to 12gb per month. Otherwise I would have gone with them.

As a funeral is a legitimate cost of the estate it doesn’t really matter whether it is paid before the accounts are frozen or after the matter. It is the priority debt on the estate so as others have said can be paid by the Bank before the grant of probate is issued in any case.

We do several hundred probate cases per year and many people are like your dad and his friend.

I even paid for my Father in Laws funeral from his bank prior to freezing the account.

It is not an issue. Your answer will have satisfied the executors.

Hope that puts your mind at rest.

Whenever I can, which normally ends up as 3 or 4 times a year at parties.

I think I am pretty good for 57, my wife tends to leave the room when I start. The youngsters seem to love it though.

Dance like nobody is watching.

The offence is Fraud on a power, and can lead to up to 7 years in jail, but it won’t in this case. We dealt with a case a couple of years back where a couple had spent 250k of their elderly neighbour’s assets and they got 2.5 years each.

Technically they have done wrong, the bonds should have been bought in her name, and any prizes reinvested up to the 50k holding limit. The OPG won’t be interested as the power of attorney dies with her. The police won’t be interested unless significant amounts have been misappropriated.

So as long as the prizes are paid back into the estate and declared as a part of the administration there shouldn’t be a problem.

I had my ablation 2 years ago at Papworth. Similar story to most of the above really low resting heart rate around 38bpm, doctor said that either I was a super fit athlete (I am not) or there was something wrong. He monitored it for a couple of years then I started to get bouts of AF and dizziness.

Booked in for a few tests with a specialist who recommended the ablation. In and out of Papworth in half a day. All done under sedation rather than a general anaesthetic. They struggled a little to get my blood pressure up in the immediate aftermath of the Op but I was still discharged within 3 hours. I did have pretty extensive bruising on my thigh afterwards. But the procedure has been a success so far (they do warn that it is not a permanent fix). Resting HR is now around 48 which the specialist is happy with.

I’m in Deeping Peloton for the win!!

Tenants in Common (TIC) is used for multiple situations – The most common are when the property is owned in unequal shares, to mitigate the impact of care home fees in the event of the survivor needing care after the first partner died and to prevent sideways disinheritance.

As was said above TIC allows you to give your share by Will to whomever you want. It does not allow you to sell your share without the permission of the other owner – the restriction placed on the Land Registry is very clear on this.

As far as the worked examples go, the normal scenario is that you will write a Will that directs your share of the property into a trust on your death. The UWE-r Family Trust comes into existence on the date of your death. The terms of the trust are that the surviving partner can live in the property for the rest of their life, they will be responsible for the bills, upkeep and insurance etc. Then on their death the share that you put into the trust is paid out to beneficiaries that you specified when you wrote your will.

For care fees it works like this – Property say £300,000 on first death half goes into the family trust and half stays in the ownership of the surviving partner. If the surviving partner then needs care the Local Authority responsible for providing the care will do a financial assessment which will include the question do you own any property. The answer is I own half a house and the other half is owned by the UWE-r family trust. At this point the LA have to apply a 15% discount on the value of the property, 10% for having a non resident joint owner (the trust) and 5% to allow for the fees if it were sold. So the share being assessed for care costs is £150,000 – £45,000 meaning that £105,000 can be charged with care fees in the future and your chosen beneficiaries (in most cases your kids) are guaranteed some sort of inheritance. It also means that the nominated trustees can rent out the property to help to pay the costs which slows down the erosion of the capital.

For sideways disinheritance, the same type of trust arrangement is written into a Will. Then if you die and your partner remarries (which would revoke their original Will) your kids will be guaranteed get your share of the property in the future rather than the Wicked Stepmother/ Evil Stepfather or even worse their kids.

This happens far more than you would think.

From a practitioners point of view TIC is almost always the best option as it allows for flexible planning. About 2/3rds of the Wills that we write involve a TIC arrangement.

Word of warning though if you are unmarried and don’t have a Will then TIC can be dangerous as the share of the property will be distributed according to the intestacy rules – Children then Parents and then Siblings etc and would never default to the unmarried partner. In that case Beneficial Joint Tenants would be the way to go.

Hope that helps.
Nick.

I just got royally shafted by a loss adjuster on a flood claim for an estate that I was dealing with. Settlement was £13600, reinstatement cost £20k.

As people have said above, they are working for the insurance company and trying to save them money. They are not your friends.

We got my mum a Buddi band. http://www.buddi.co.uk It works well enough, we had a few false alarms when she first got it, since we got the sensitivity right it works well. It detects falls automatically and she can press it herself if she needs to raise the alarm.

It alerts, me,my wife, both my brothers and a couple of her grandchildren if anything happens.

I work with a few, they range from excellent to useless.

If you are paying a fee you will generally get a better service, but not always.

if you don’t pay a fee then the advisor is being paid by the lender by way of a procurement fee, the conveyancing company that they have a fee share agreement with, and by commission from any insurance products that they can flog you. Plus if they are the builders recommended firm they will normally be paying a big chunk of their fees back to the builder. This means they have to do volume to make it a viable business, hence you are more likely to get a poor service.

Best advice is to ask around until you find a friend who has had a good experience and go with the guy.

I won a trip to the European Bicycle design contest held in Brussels about 25 years ago. First class Eurostar five star hotel and a reception at the European Parliament.

There were about 8 or 9 really weird concepts in the competition, a couple of hundred EU employees from the transport department talking earnestly about sustainability and generally getting lashed on Shimano’s dollar. I spent four days and nights pi***d and talking bikes.

Bizarre, but one of the most memorable trips I have ever been on..

I have a XC 60, again you have to name it for the Volvo app. NMO on the reg plate so Nemo.
It did throw me at first when I started getting messages from Nemo, but I got used to it.

As ever I will declare my interest at the start. I own a Will writing firm and am on the professional standards board of the Society of Will Writers. I have been doing Wills for almost 16 years.

Get your Will done professionally, don’t do your own. I was part of the Legal Services Board consumer panel that researched the quality of wills and advice a few years back (2014). We found that professionally written wills went through Probate without issue 97% of the time, home made around 37%.

The people who have said that you find out the true cost of your Will after you die are right. Home made wills equals more fees for us to sort out the mess.

There will be stuff you haven’t thought about, there could be Inheritance Tax issues, worries about care costs and protection g your assets. Making sure your kids get what you leave rather than their step mum or step dad.

An hour or so of your time and a couple of hundred quid will give you and your family peace of mind. It is well worth it.

Don’t ever be tempted to put a solicitor or will writing firm in as your executor, as others have said you are effectively writing a blank cheque. This is a definite last resort.

The free Will offers are often a sprat to catch a mackerel, you sign up for a free Will and end up paying thousands for a family trust. Charity offers are generally OK though.

Blatant Plug –
If you want a chat get in touch with a message on here or via my website http://www.will-probate.co.uk.

Hope that helps
Nick.

The residence nil rate band thing came in in 2017 and was a tortuous way to reach a Tory manifesto pledge in 2015 (the reasons for which stretch back to when Tony Blair resigned) that no estate of less than a million pounds will need to pay inheritance tax. This led to the readers of the Daily Mail and The Express rejoicing that the Tory’s had abolished Inheritance Tax for the ordinary man in the street. The reality is somewhat different and the £1 million threshold is dependant on a lot of things. But essentially if you are married or widowed and leave everything to your children and the family home is over £350,000 you can pass an estate of less than a million without inheritance tax.

The problem is that these allowances have to be claimed and they are not there as of right, so to claim the residence nil rate band you have to go down the road of completing the IHT 400, and all the schedules. You also need to complete a PA1P probate application form.

So to answer the OP’s question, The PA1P is sent to the Harlow Probate Registry (address is on the form) who now deal with all personal applications. IHT 400 plus schedules plus IHT 421 go to HMRC.

HMRC will then stamp the 421 and forward it to Harlow who will produce the grant.

@Esme I have to say your experience is not typical most people are waiting several months to get an issued grant. We have applications from October and November that haven’t issued. That said we occasionally get lucky and one comes through quickly. Sadly there is no Rhyme nor Reason to it, just the luck of the draw.

@colournoise If the Deepings aren’t in the fens how do you explain Deeping Fen, where the ploughing match is held, Langtoft fen and Baston fen, home of the national speed skating champs back in the old days when it got cold and wet enough to make a track.
Western edge of the fens, but fens they are.

@highlandman I was trying to be light hearted. Clearly Peloton is not for you. But FYI I can handle a bike pretty well, There is plenty to smile about and enjoy in a peloton class, or a spin class which is what I did pre pandemic. My company is partnered with a food bank and I donate regularly through that.
It’s another way to get through winter, I don’t think it warrants a personal attack.

Gotta love the haters. The fact is it is fun, competitive, bloody hard work if you do the more advanced classes and I am fitter this year in February than I normally am in May or June.

I considered Zwift, but my wife didn’t fancy a video game and a decent set up is not far away from the Peloton cost.

And some of the instructors are very easy on the eye.

@eddiebaby that’s the Bike, us cool kids have the Bike +

@morecashthandash If you ever hung around Terry Wright Cycles I am pretty sure you do know me.

My Peloton is my third best bike, it is just the one that is most suited to winter riding. I do plenty of road and off road miles each year, it is just that as I have got older I prefer riding when the weather is good.

The weather is always good in my conservatory.

Yes, signed up for it yesterday. Twenty quid for a year is a bargain.

Our experience with Howdens was great. It helps that our builder who was a mate gave them permission to share his trade prices with us (70% off list). Buy in March or October as that’s their sale periods.
The designer they sent did an excellent job and incorporated all of our suggestions, was very patient, we took over a year from designing the kitchen to buying it as the builders were involved in a big project, and she put up with lots of small tweaks between her first design and what we ended up with.
We sourced our granite worktops ourselves and our appliances came from John Lewis in their clearance. Cheaper than AO.
The thing that stretched our budget was the electricians. We ended up having to have a new fuse box and the whole house bought up to the latest standards, which put 5k on the total cost. Get an electrical survey done before you start so you know what you are in for.

STW

Prime
Independent
Peloton
Netflix
Vimeo
Dropbox
Google Drive

Someone paid me in cash a couple of weeks ago – £550. It is in my desk drawer as my bank (HSBC) have closed my nearest three branches over the last 12 months. So my local branch is 11 miles away in the city centre where parking is a real pain. I can’t pay cash into my business account at the local post office for some random reason. So it sits in my desk drawer waiting for the next time I have to go into town which frankly could be months. The client had the cheek to ask if I did a discount for cash!

The only cash I have in my wallet is 60 euros from a trip to Spain in October 2019. I didn’t change it back to sterling because I knew I was going to France in April 2020. I will get to spend it one day though.

Thanks for the Tip on Motorhome Fun, I will register and have a look around there.

Lamb Stew with Pearl Barley is the greatest thing in the world when done in a pressure cooker. Super easy to do – Diced Lamb, onions, tomato puree, pearl barley your choice of root veggies, some herbs, salt & pepper and a couple of stock cubes. Pop it all in the pot and cook.

You can thank me later.

L’or instant, Waitrose’s beans and Lidl for the Nesspresso capsules