Do it yourself probate

Handling probate on behalf of a friend or relative could save their estate thousands of pounds. Is it hard? Read on to find out about my experience. .

I have been absent from the site these past six weeks. We have had a complicated and mucky building project that made my study uninhabitable, plus the deaths of two elderly relatives, plus a broadband failure. All is now more or less back in order.

My late mother’s sister was three months short of her 100th birthday when she died. I had been trying to make sense of her modest means since she went into care a year ago, and I am her executor. The solicitor engaged to conduct the formalities around the sale of the flat in Sunderland gave me some great advice. “If the estate is simple, and especially if there is no question of an IHT liability, don’t waste your money and my time asking me to do Probate. Do it yourself.”

So I did. And Her Majesty’s Court Service, as it is somewhat inelegantly named, won all the prizes. The website is navigable, the notes and forms are well designed and well executed, my customer expectations were managed, and the reception at the hearing was courteous and businesslike. There should also be an honourable mention for HM Revenue and Customs, because their form was also out of the top drawer.

Downhill from there I’m afraid. The Department of Work & Pensions form was awful, I couldn’t get answers from the people running my Aunt’s occupational pension, the care home still hasn’t refunded the overpayment promised a month ago, and Northumbrian Water told me two days ago that the cheque I had been chasing for five weeks was in the post.

But NS&I took the biscuit. The brochure says that where there’s a Will, they will need a copy of the Death Certificate, the original Will or a certified copy, plus the Grant of Probate.

Why, thought I, do they need the Death Certificate and the Grant, given that the latter specifies the date of death, which information is of course gleaned from the Death Certificate in the first place? Come to that, If you’ve applied for Probate the Court now has the Will and you can’t get it back to copy it.

So I ‘phoned. “No”, explained the helpful adviser, “all we need is the Grant”. “Not what the brochure says”, I replied. From the tone of voice at t’other end I doubt I was the first caller on this topic. It really isn’t hard to get this right, so I assume they just don’t try.

Look on the bright side: if I’d used the lawyer I would have paid his hourly rate for all the faffing about.

Read this article at http://www.candidmoney.com/articles/article129.aspx