Scrutable

Has anyone here done probate? It hasn't happened yet but my dad is dying imminently and I'm the executor so I want to do it myself. I know there's advice online but any tips would be great. I've already been told to get a lot of copies of the death certificate.

Once he dies I'll go to my parents' place in the West Country where there is no Internet but I'm planning to come back to London between the initial sorting out and the funeral. One of the neighbours offered to let me use his one time before but the nearest house is nearly 100m away so that's not ideal (and I have a crap old phone that won't go online).

I'm pretty much doing everything solo so advice would be great. Information makes me feel better.

(I'm doing OK so far, we were never at all close)

Yes I did my mums, it went OK. It helped I am/was a lawyer, though not that type, but I could pop along the coridoor to chat with my colleague who teaches that stuff...

Sorry to hear about your dad, Tessa.

I've never dealt with probate; my folks have had to as both my mother's parents died without much preparation - my gran suddenly of a stroke and my grandad simply didn't prepare prior to dementia.

From that experience, what I can say is that getting death certificates, evidence of being next of kin, etc is important, and take along to all meetings with banks, councils, etc as they are forced to check you are who you claim to be quite thoroughly. Also, try and identify all possible old bank accounts, post office accounts, etc, plus any creditors (any recent building work, etc) and go through bank statements for a year or two to identify any unusual payments which may crop up.

See if you can find out if your father has a life insurance or funeral policy.

Also, see the CAB. Helping you with probate should be meat and drink to them.

I'm so sorry to hear about your dad. I haven't directly done probate but I've seen my mum do it for, I think, five relatives including her own parents and husband. I'll have a chat to her tomorrow and see if she's got any advice that hasn't already been given.

One thing I will say is that dealing with probate and the aftermath of a bereavement is a great way of delaying dealing with your grief. There's a lot to do and so you often put your grief on hold until later, and by the time you actually start having the mental space to start processing it everyone around you expects you to be largely done and forgets to check up on you. (Other experiences are available). So make sure you take care of yourself and remember that the "five stages of grief" b.llsh.t is exactly that - b.llsh.t.

Both The Bread Goddess and I have done it.

Top Murmur Tip: search every-sodding-where you can think of and then some other places just to make sure you've found all bank or savings accounts and the like.

Be thorough, double and treble check your figures. If property is involved make damn sure the estate agent isn't hugely inflating the sale price.

Expect a longer delay in the grant coming through than you will be told it will (TBG found it took over twice as long as the local office claimed).

Otherwise, there is guidance and advice on the interweb.

And commisserations.

I found that the person I had to go and see about it was helpful. Wasn't as scary as it looked like it was going to be.

Your real nemeses will probably be other relatives.

Sorry to hear about your dad!

On probate; OH did his dad's. I did probate for both my mum and dad a few years apart, officialdom was generally fine - probate office was helpful - HMRC generally helpful apart from they managed to do a couple of bits where they actually undercharged and after a few attempts at writing/ringing to explain I gave up telling them...

You're going to have to find most of the info yourself anyway which is the time-consuming bit, so I didn't think there was any point paying someone else to do the form filling. Only reason I'd appoint someone is if the split of the proceeds is complicated or involves 'problem' relatives.


TIP: don't leave loose ends - when I did mum's I didn't get round to taking her off the deeds for their house - when dad died I discovered they'd had her name wrong on the deeds, first lawyer I talked to about the house sale was going to make a huge faff out of it and wanted all sorts of evidence I couldn't find (I dumped him because he still managed to get her name wrong in our correspondence), luckily second lawyer just said 'don't worry we'll just sign a somethingorother' and all was well!

TIP2: be aware that there'll always be one company or bank or something that is a complete PITA, so you'll end up in six months of anguished correspondence about something that will probably amount to £50 difference either way...

EDIT; and not probate related but as executor if there's a house that's going to be unoccupied for a while watch out for the insurance conditions and change cover if neccessary

I've only done probate in Texas, so I have no useful advice about UK probate other than to second this:

Hunting Dog wrote: ↑

Sat Jan 11, 2020 5:50 pm

TIP2: be aware that there'll always be one company or bank or something that is a complete PITA, so you'll end up in six months of anguished correspondence about something that will probably amount to £50 difference either way...

That said, most companies will actually be quite efficient and sympathetic.

Get multiple death certificates ("certified copies"?). For my mother's death, several organisations claimed they required "the original" death certificate before they would do anything.

MrsG's uncle died intestate, so (as she and her brothers were the only surviving relativee) they appointed a firm of solicitors to act as executors.
Mostly it was straightforward, but because one investment was based in Jersey, there had to be a separate application for probate there as well.
In all, it cost about £1,600.

I have obtained probate a few times in the past and have helped a couple of friends in the past year.

Things have changed for the better in the last few years; you can do the whole thing on line now as long as the estate is relatively small (under£1m) and fairly simple.
The "Tell Us Once" service saves a lot of hassle.

I agree with the comments about getting extra copies of the Death Certificates and the same applies to the grant of probate, although in my experience you don't need as many as you think because most organisations are very efficient at sending back the originals.

My main tip is to be very methodical and thorough, put it all into a spreadsheet.

Thanks guys. I'm heading down to the Land of No Internet shortly but I'll pick up any more replies when I get back.