Advice
You, or at least your estate, may be eligible for a tax rebate after you die. A personal representative, be it an executor or an administrator, can claim your whole personal allowance for the tax year in which you passed away. But that only applies to income received prior to your death. Money received after…
Even estates valued below the inheritance tax threshold are sometimes investigated by Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs. So it’s vital that a realistic valuation is sought for something like a house, which in many cases forms the bulk of the estate. The taxman insists on an open market valuation, which is described as the “price…
It appears quite sensible on the face of it. A husband and wife jointly own a house. While planning for the future should either lose mental capacity, they appoint each other to look after their financial affairs by taking out Lasting Powers of Attorney. Years later, one is diagnosed with dementia and is eventually taken…
BBC Match of the Day pundit Alan Hansen famously said: “You can’t win anything with kids.” The former Liverpool defender was criticising manager Alex Ferguson for fielding a young Manchester United side in August 1995. That comment went down in football folklore as the team with an average age of 26 went on to clinch…
Estate accounts must be retained for the length of time that Franklin D Roosevelt was president of the United States of America. History buffs will know that was 12 years, a period covering a large part of the Great Depression and the Second World War. Let’s hope the 12 years you keep your estate accounts…
Now it’s all systems go, as they say at NASA mission control. Armed with the grant of probate, you can collect and sell assets, pay debts and distribute the remainder of the estate in accordance with the will or the rules of intestacy. This should be straightforward as the whole estate will have already been…
Nearly three-quarters of the UK population wrongly believe that probate is a legal service. A recent survey by Bristol-based estate administration company Kings Court Trust revealed that 74% of clients of financial advisers think that you have to use a solicitor when sorting out the money and possessions of someone who has died. In fact,…
Thank goodness you don’t have to stand in an open court with your left hand on a bible and answer to a scary judge wearing a black robe and a wig. A few weeks after posting the probate forms, you will be called to the registry for an interview. You will be asked to swear…
I’m afraid there is no escaping the laborious task of form filling if you are tasked with sorting out the money and possessions of someone who has died. Applying for probate – the legal authority to dispose of a dead person’s estate – is done by completing form PA1, which can be downloaded from www.gov.uk.…
Aren’t the simplest ideas the best? There is no need to download a clever app or even activate an in-built self-destruct device. If you are sorting out the affairs of someone who has died and need to cancel their passport, simply cut off the top right-hand corner. This is an internationally recognised method of signalling…