This week’s GUEST BLOG by Jonathan Upton, CEO of Estatesearch, provides useful guidance for executors. Jonathan looks at the challenges faced by executors and the services available to help them to carry out their responsibilities with as little additional stress as possible.
Supporting Executors
As a legal technology company, at Estatesearch we support private client practitioners working on bereavement cases. We are also one of the founders of the Vulnerable Banking Group, and we are dedicated to ensuring vulnerable people are treated fairly and that includes families who have lost loved ones.
When someone passes away, a person is appointed as executor of their estate. This may be a solicitor or a family member who has been asked to be the executor. Their responsibilities are detailed and Age UK has set out a list which you may find helpful:
From a financial perspective some of the key responsibilities are to value the estate and distribute assets to beneficiaries. However, with much banking being completed online these days, simply understanding which bank accounts were held by the deceased and where can present challenges.
To help solve this issue, we work with solicitors to provide our Financial Asset Search. Here the legal representative orders a search through our secure online portal. We then make enquiries of more than 150 organisations, searching over 450 companies and brands including banks, building societies, investment managers, share registrars, pension providers and insurers to help identify accounts. Solicitors can then make further enquiries if a financial institution confirms the deceased holds an account or a pension for example.
If you are an executor and do not know where the deceased banked or what assets they held, you can ask your solicitor to conduct a Financial Profile Search through Estatesearch.
Once the value of the estate has been established, any inheritance tax paid and Probate has been granted, the assets then need to be distributed to the beneficiaries according to the Will. If there is no Will, intestate rules apply. However, it would be worth asking for your solicitor to complete a Will search early on in the process, as this means that reasonable steps have been taken to identify any later or missing Will and helps ensure the testator’s wishes are carried out correctly.
Estatesearch also offers a Will search which makes enquiries across local and national will holders including local solicitors and Will writing members of the Institute of Professional Willwriters (IPW) and the Society of Will Writers (SWW). It also includes a search of the Probate Depository and a number of online will providers. Crucially, Estatesearch takes into account that the average person moves house up to eight times during their lifetime, and searches on providers near all connected addresses supplied with no maximum limit.
When a loved one passes away there are many things to address. As an executor, responsibilities for financial aspects can seem complex, particularly when someone is grieving. At Estatesearch we try to take the burden of uncertainty relating to assets and Will searches away from executors to help them carry out their responsibilities with as little additional stress as possible.
For more information about how your solicitor can order Financial Profile Searches or Will Searches please see:
https://www.estatesearch.co.uk/