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Discovery of Wills and Assets

including wills and probate
CliffEdge
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412124

Postby CliffEdge » May 15th, 2021, 12:24 pm

Does the executor not offer Will storage?

GeoffF100
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412139

Postby GeoffF100 » May 15th, 2021, 1:11 pm

CliffEdge wrote:Does the executor not offer Will storage?

They may well do that, but how would anyone know that they had it? It costs nothing to search the Primary Register of the Family Division, provided that you have the death certificate, and Citizens Advice recommends that approach, so there should be a good chance that it will in fact be searched. The commercial Certainty register charges a fee to do a search. Getting the charity to hold a list of my investments would be a good idea, if they have a system set up for doing that.

9873210
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412199

Postby 9873210 » May 15th, 2021, 4:33 pm

GeoffF100 wrote:Getting the charity to hold a list of my investments would be a good idea, if they have a system set up for doing that.


The solicitor storing the will may also store one or more letters of instruction for the executor (or anybody else you want to contact from the here after.) These could include a list of current assets and be updated as needed. A solicitor might charge for this.

Any solicitor doing this will probably make use of the old fashioned technology of envelopes, rather than the new fangled technology of stapling.

GeoffF100
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412246

Postby GeoffF100 » May 15th, 2021, 6:54 pm

9873210 wrote:
GeoffF100 wrote:Getting the charity to hold a list of my investments would be a good idea, if they have a system set up for doing that.

The solicitor storing the will may also store one or more letters of instruction for the executor (or anybody else you want to contact from the here after.) These could include a list of current assets and be updated as needed. A solicitor might charge for this.

Any solicitor doing this will probably make use of the old fashioned technology of envelopes, rather than the new fangled technology of stapling.

I am sure that solicitors will file stuff away with a will. I am also sure that there will be a charge for storing updated documents every month. Storing a link to a folder in the cloud should be cheaper.

As I have said, stapling can cause serious problems. If there are any marks on the will, that can lead to doubts about whether it is exactly as it was when it was witnessed. The advice is do not attach anything to a will. There does not appear to be any problem with storing other documents in the same envelope though.

scrumpyjack
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412250

Postby scrumpyjack » May 15th, 2021, 7:05 pm

The executor does not need a list of investments, simply a list of brokers, bankers etc and the account numbers. If some shares are held in certificated form, he/she would need to know where the certificates are, not how many of which security.

So the information recorded really does not need to give values, but simply how to find the assets.

Clitheroekid
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412274

Postby Clitheroekid » May 15th, 2021, 8:38 pm

GeoffF100 wrote:Would the Principal Registry of the Family Division automatically be searched?

No is the short answer, but only because in the vast majority of cases it's not necessary, the Will having been found easily.

However, if there was no trace of a Will but it was thought likely that a Will had been made then yes, a PR search would be part of the usual checklist.

It would also be normal practice to make a search with the National Will Register - https://www.nationalwillregister.co.uk/ There is a charge to register your Will with them but as the registration charge is £30 you may think it not excessive for an estate worth millions!

However, I think you're worrying excessively. The large charities are in my experience extremely greedy, and I've no doubt they have a link to some form of database that will automatically check every death in the UK to see if it matches up to a name in their own records. When your name pops up on a death certificate I'd guarantee that they will know about it within days, as will the solicitor holding the original Will.

What can do I do to ensure that the executor has an up to date list of my investments? I could set up a file listing the accounts on the cloud, with read access to anyone with the link. Perhaps that link could be included in my will? Is there a better method?

This is not really necessary. When I'm administering an estate I don't need a list of individual investments; I just need to know where they are. For example, as most shares are now held in nominee accounts I just need to know who holds them and they will provide me with full details. So all you really need is a list of which institutions hold your assets.

I have read that you must not attach other documents to your will. The issue is that the will must be exactly as it was when it was witnessed. If the will has staple holes in it, that can also cause problems in establishing that the will is complete, i.e. that an original attachment has not been removed.

You’re entirely correct, and gryffron should take note. If a Will has a document attached to it, or there is evidence that a document was attached to it, e.g. staple holes, it definitely causes problems when applying for probate, as you will need to file what used to be quaintly called an `affidavit of plight and condition', though it's now submitted in the form of a witness statement.

I need to have lots of bank accounts to stay within the FSCS compensation limit.

Whilst I can understand the logic I really can't see that with such a large estate it's worth the hassle of changing accounts all the time. Providing the accounts are with a major bank, like Barclays or HSBC the chances of them going bust are so minimal it's surely not worth bothering about - or if they do go bust then the chances are that your other investments will be worthless as well!

I am sure that solicitors will file stuff away with a will. I am also sure that there will be a charge for storing updated documents every month. Storing a link to a folder in the cloud should be cheaper.

In my experience solicitors never make a charge for storing Wills, as they look upon them as an asset. If they hold the Will it gives them a head start when the application for probate is to be made, and such work is generally profitable and welcome.

Finally, I would ask you to consider whether giving such large amounts to a `big charity' is making the best use of your estate. I have spent decades dealing with these charities, and many of them can only be described as rapacious. They have an arrangement whereby they check every Will that's admitted to probate, and as soon as they see their name they immediately contact the executor / solicitor to stake their claim.

They often send chasing letters, and if they're a residuary beneficiary they will almost always demand copies of the estate accounts, and go through them with a fine tooth comb, looking for any possible errors. I had one only a couple of years ago submitting a two page questionnaire, asking questions such as did we get advice from at least three estate agents when selling the house, and asking for copies of their advice. They even wanted copies of contract notes for the sale of shares. I basically told them to get stuffed, but presumably many solicitors pander to such demands, thereby increasing the legal bill at the expense of the residuary beneficiaries (ironically meaning the charity gets less!)

They also routinely employ expensive London solicitors to do their chasing for them, wasting their assets quite wantonly, no doubt because the senior partner of the solicitors is chummy with one of the trustees of the charity!

Of course not all of them are like this, but I have a very sceptical view of many of the large charities anyway. They are run more like large companies than charities, with often very highly paid staff and vast marketing spends. They occupy prime property in central London, and generally look after themselves extremely well.

By contrast, there are many much smaller, local charities who are what I would call `genuine’ charities, mostly run by volunteers, and who do a really great job, often on a shoestring. I'm quite open in advising my clients who are intending to benefit `the usual suspects' to consider these alternatives, where the money (at least in my opinion) achieves a lot more per pound than giving it to a large, national charity.

It's also genuinely heart warming to see the gratitude that results from even a fairly modest legacy to a small charity, as it often makes a huge difference to them, whereas £10k for a national charity is chump change.

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but it's something I feel quite strongly about, having witnessed at first hand some quite appalling behaviour from the national charities, and it’s a trend that seems to be getting worse.

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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412307

Postby GeoffF100 » May 15th, 2021, 10:03 pm

Thank you very much for that CK. I was hoping that you would still be around.

With regard to savings accounts, I have just looked at HSBC. The best interest rate I could see was 0.25%. I can get 1.35% on a 5 year bond from Hodge Bank, but I would not want to exceed the compensation limit with them. If I am using 5 year bonds, I want a ladder with bonds maturing at regular intervals. I am gaining over 1% p.a. and that compounds up over time. The probate costs only happen once.

Certainty (AKA National Will Register) only costs £10 more to deposit a will. I was worried that the search fee might be a deterrent. My charity is Macmillan. Here are their accounts:

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/_images/20 ... 358602.pdf

I think I now have a good understanding of the issues. I could do worse than to talk to Macmillan. You would be right in saying that a few million is not going to make much difference to them, and would make a bigger difference to a smaller charity. The Macmillan people are highly paid, but the charity should have good governance. They may well hire one firm of solicitors as executor and another firm to chase them, but that should not bite deeply into my estate.

dealtn
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412412

Postby dealtn » May 16th, 2021, 11:42 am

GeoffF100 wrote:With regard to savings accounts, I have just looked at HSBC. The best interest rate I could see was 0.25%. I can get 1.35% on a 5 year bond from Hodge Bank, but I would not want to exceed the compensation limit with them.


I know nothing of that bank, or its products, but with all cases it is best to ensure you are covered by FSCS.

Some "bonds" mean you are an investor, not a depositer, and the ranking of your claim in the case of financial trouble, and the protections afforded will thus vary.

scrumpyjack
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412452

Postby scrumpyjack » May 16th, 2021, 1:49 pm

GeoffF100 wrote:Thank you very much for that CK. I was hoping that you would still be around.

With regard to savings accounts, I have just looked at HSBC. The best interest rate I could see was 0.25%. I can get 1.35% on a 5 year bond from Hodge Bank, but I would not want to exceed the compensation limit with them. If I am using 5 year bonds, I want a ladder with bonds maturing at regular intervals. I am gaining over 1% p.a. and that compounds up over time. The probate costs only happen once.

Certainty (AKA National Will Register) only costs £10 more to deposit a will. I was worried that the search fee might be a deterrent. My charity is Macmillan. Here are their accounts:

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/_images/20 ... 358602.pdf

I think I now have a good understanding of the issues. I could do worse than to talk to Macmillan. You would be right in saying that a few million is not going to make much difference to them, and would make a bigger difference to a smaller charity. The Macmillan people are highly paid, but the charity should have good governance. They may well hire one firm of solicitors as executor and another firm to chase them, but that should not bite deeply into my estate.


It is very generous of you to give such a large sum to charity. Having been involved in a charity I am very sceptical of the large charities. Their attitude seems to be that it is worth spending 99p to raise £1 and an awful lot gets wasted in high overheads, salaries, London offices etc. Looking at Macmillan's accounts I see that out of £245m of expenditure £100m went on the cost of fundraising and on spending on campaigning and 'raising awareness'. A lot of the rest will have gone on overheads but still be classed as 'charitable activity spending'. When I have given money I have always gone for small charities, with a strong volunteer ethos, where I think one's gift gets far more 'bang for a buck'. Perhaps that is just my prejudice, but the fellow trustees of the charity I was a trustee of for 5 years had decades of experience, including working with MacMillan funding a new cancer wing at the local hospital. They were firmly of the same view. Our charity, which was paying for the new wing, made quite sure the funds stayed firmly out of MacMillan's grasp, so they didn't end up paying their overheads!

Dod101
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412458

Postby Dod101 » May 16th, 2021, 2:10 pm

I hesitate very much to comment on people's choice of charities because often they will be based on their own experiences, good and bad. When my late wife was in the later stages of a blood cancer, we were rather unimpressed by Macmillan nurses and I hesitate to get too involved with them. OTOH, the charity supporting those with her blood cancer, Myeloma UK, was excellent at the personal level so I have left them some money in my Will and gladly support them at Christmas for example.

Not much to do with the OP's question but I thought worth mentioning.

Dod

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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412510

Postby Clitheroekid » May 16th, 2021, 5:25 pm

scrumpyjack wrote:Looking at Macmillan's accounts I see that out of £245m of expenditure £100m went on the cost of fundraising and on spending on campaigning and 'raising awareness'. A lot of the rest will have gone on overheads but still be classed as 'charitable activity spending'.

I quite agree. The term ‘raising awareness’ is extremely flexible and may well cover activities that look to a naive outsider more like a bit of a jolly!

In yesterday‘s Telegraph there was an article featuring some reminiscences from staff at top London hotels. One of them, talking about his time at the Savoy, said “When it was the month of Princess Diana‘s 30th birthday in 1991, she dined with us 30 times because all of her charities were having celebration lunches and cocktail parties for her. Sometimes she was at the Savoy twice a day.”

No doubt the not inconsiderable cost of a celebration lunch or cocktail party at the Savoy could be paid out of the ‘raising awareness’ fund!

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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412554

Postby PinkDalek » May 16th, 2021, 9:56 pm

Off topic to the subject header but:

Clitheroekid wrote:... No doubt the not inconsiderable cost of a celebration lunch or cocktail party at the Savoy could be paid out of the ‘raising awareness’ fund!


Did that, no doubt fully researched article, manage to establish how many of those events were free to attend?

Most in a similar vein that I’ve been to (not recently I hasten to add, as I got bored with them) cost a pretty penny to buy a ticket & involved all types of fund raising at the event itself & after.

Both the (smaller) charities with which I was involved relied on such events to cover their annual costs & more.

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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412564

Postby PinkDalek » May 16th, 2021, 10:32 pm

scrumpyjack wrote:... Looking at Macmillan's accounts I see that out of £245m of expenditure £100m went on the cost of fundraising and on spending on campaigning and 'raising awareness'.


That may be so and I do understand the gist of your post generally but did your look get as far as note 10 to the financial statements, where ‘Campaigning and raising awareness’ is broken down to some extent?

https://www.macmillan.org.uk/_images/2019-annual-report-and-accounts_tcm9-358602.pdf

Dod101
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412566

Postby Dod101 » May 16th, 2021, 10:37 pm

PinkDalek wrote:Off topic to the subject header but:

Clitheroekid wrote:... No doubt the not inconsiderable cost of a celebration lunch or cocktail party at the Savoy could be paid out of the ‘raising awareness’ fund!


Did that, no doubt fully researched article, manage to establish how many of those events were free to attend?

Most in a similar vein that I’ve been to (not recently I hasten to add, as I got bored with them) cost a pretty penny to buy a ticket & involved all types of fund raising at the event itself & after.

Both the (smaller) charities with which I was involved relied on such events to cover their annual costs & more.


I agree. There is an awful lot of prejudice about this sort of thing and in any case are charities supposed to be in sackcloth and ashes all of the time?
This sort of stuff feeds prejudices unfortunately which is why I think it best to leave such comments unsaid.

Dod

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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412572

Postby Clitheroekid » May 16th, 2021, 10:50 pm

By coincidence I was doing some research earlier, and came across a list of the top nonprofit and charity earners in the US.

It's not surprising that some of the CEO's of nonprofits are on very high salaries, as some of them are gigantic organisations with revenues in the billions.

However, I was surprised by the `compensation' paid to some of the charity CEO's, in particular the CEO of the Florida Coalition Against Domestic Violence, one Tiffany Carr. The charity has revenues of about $56m, and she receives a whopping £4.6m - over 8% of its income!

https://www.causeiq.com/insights/highes ... ofit-ceos/

I simply can't believe that it can be remotely necessary to pay such high levels of remuneration to obtain the right person.

Apologies for having started and then followed up a drift off-topic, I promise not to mention it again! ;)

JohnB
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412582

Postby JohnB » May 16th, 2021, 11:16 pm

Florida Leaders File Lawsuits Against Domestic Violence Coalition and Former CEO


https://www.mynews13.com/fl/orlando/pol ... ce-lawsuit

So they've spotted that one

GeoffF100
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412607

Postby GeoffF100 » May 17th, 2021, 7:17 am

dealtn wrote:
GeoffF100 wrote:With regard to savings accounts, I have just looked at HSBC. The best interest rate I could see was 0.25%. I can get 1.35% on a 5 year bond from Hodge Bank, but I would not want to exceed the compensation limit with them.

I know nothing of that bank, or its products, but with all cases it is best to ensure you are covered by FSCS.

Some "bonds" mean you are an investor, not a depositer, and the ranking of your claim in the case of financial trouble, and the protections afforded will thus vary.

Yes, it is protected by the FSCS:

https://hodgebank.co.uk/savings/persona ... unt-bonds/

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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412617

Postby GeoffF100 » May 17th, 2021, 8:03 am

scrumpyjack wrote:Having been involved in a charity I am very sceptical of the large charities. Their attitude seems to be that it is worth spending 99p to raise £1 and an awful lot gets wasted in high overheads, salaries, London offices etc.

What is wrong with spending 99p to raise £1? You make 1p profit. You also raise awareness of your cause, which may lead to further donations that cannot be quantified. At the bottom of page 55 of the report and accounts:

Expenditure on charitable activities £180.8 million
Expenditure on raising income £64.9 million
Total expenditure £245.7 million


The percentage of expenditure spent on raising income was 26%. Large organisations inevitably have pay high salaries and have higher overheads than smaller organisations. Nonetheless, no human organisation is perfect. I expect that the organisation could be more cost effective.

scrumpyjack wrote:Looking at Macmillan's accounts I see that out of £245m of expenditure £100m went on the cost of fundraising and on spending on campaigning and 'raising awareness'. A lot of the rest will have gone on overheads but still be classed as 'charitable activity spending'.

Also from page 55:

Campaigning and raising awareness £35.8 million, i.e. 15%.

I believe that activity has been expanded in recent years (my will is 8 years old). It is worth noting that I can specify in my will how my legacy is to be spent. Clearly, I would need to consult with Macmillan before doing that. It may well be that I was wise to make no stipulation. They are in a better position than me to decide how the money is best spent. The positive message here is that I should spend more time learning more about the charity, and consider alternatives.

scrumpyjack
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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412628

Postby scrumpyjack » May 17th, 2021, 8:50 am

GeoffF100 wrote: The positive message here is that I should spend more time learning more about the charity, and consider alternatives.


Completely agree with that. It would be good if there was a lot more incisive reviewing of the way charities spent their money. Just because something sounds 'a good thing' does not necessarily meant it is an efficient conduit for helping the causes you want to help. There are many charities doing a wonderful job, but there are also many that are incredibly wasteful of the money they receive but that waste is kept from public view.

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Re: Discovery of Wills and Assets

#412663

Postby yorkshirelad1 » May 17th, 2021, 10:52 am

Clitheroekid wrote:Finally, I would ask you to consider whether giving such large amounts to a `big charity' is making the best use of your estate. I have spent decades dealing with these charities, and many of them can only be described as rapacious. They have an arrangement whereby they check every Will that's admitted to probate, and as soon as they see their name they immediately contact the executor / solicitor to stake their claim.

I read a very useful comment along these lines on TLF a little while ago (and I believe the comments may have come from your good self, CK, so credit given if applicable; if I have some time I'll try and track down my original source .... here it it: https://www.lemonfool.co.uk/viewtopic.php?p=261369#p261488). Basically the suggestion was to leave an amount for charitable purposes in your will (and if it's over 10% of the estate, IHT, if applicable is reduced from 40% to 36%), giving executors discretion as to which charity, but leaving a letter of wishes with the will suggesting the charities that the executors might consider. A letter of wishes is not published with the will. This has the advantage that
  1. the will will not contain the name of a charity, so the exors won't get chased by a charity
  2. if the charities change, or dissolve, the will itself doesn't have to be changed
  3. if the person making the will wants to change the list of charities, changing/updating a letter of wishes is a bit simpler than updating/changing a will


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