How much time would you say that you spend planning a holiday, researching what car to buy, or even searching for a place to have a romantic dinner for two? How does that time compare with the amount of time you spend on estate planning – deciding who will inherit your assets after you have…
You may be acting as the Executor of a deceased person’s Will, in which case you will be responsible for winding up the deceased’s estate and carrying out the terms of their Will. If the estate includes a property, then it will be your responsibility to sell the property unless the beneficiaries under the Will…
This article deals with those who act in a representative capacity for a house owner, as their attorney or deputy. Selling under a Power of Attorney It is important to be aware of the extent of your powers, which will be defined by the type of Power of Attorney you have, and any specific directions…
The programme is based on the work of probate detectives trying to find an eligible relative for a surprise inheritance. So why did 55,000 estates last year pass to the Bona Vacantia Division of the Government? Simply because the deceased failed to make a Will and did not leave any eligible relatives. If you do…
We are often asked by clients “do I need a Will?” or “does my (loved one) need a Will?” and when answering this question there are several factors to consider. It is also important not simply to see a Will as something you might need but, in fact, something you might want! Firstly, it is…
Do you know that from Spring 2020, the law is changing so that all adults will be considered to be an organ donor when they die unless they have recorded a decision not to donate or are an excluded group? (The excluded group are people under the age of 18, those who have lost mental…
We are continuing to see long delays at the Probate Registry. When we submit an application for probate, the usual turnaround time has usually been around 2 weeks. The recent delays, however, have seen applications taking up to 12 or 13 weeks. We have been told that the delays have come about due to an unusually…
Ada Richards, a widow, wrote a Will in 2010, a year before she died aged 92, leaving her fortune, including a £1.5 million home in Highgate, to Tony De Jong who had been her carer in her last years. Ada’s nephews, Derek and Ian Seager, issued a claim that the Will was invalid as Tony…
If you are widowed and your spouse/civil partner was an ISA saver then did you know that you benefit from the right to retain their ISA wrapper? Under the previous system, when someone died, any savings held in an ISA automatically lost their tax-free status, and the tax benefits were lost forever. This meant that…
As a Private Client Solicitor, I am often asked by clients, usually within a Will meeting, “what is Probate?” Probate is defined as a judicial process whereby a Will is proved through the Courts; this, as one might expect, is not an overly helpful or clear explanation to give to clients! Generally speaking, Probate is…
