What is Probate? and why does it take so long?

oh in scotland it's actually called confirmation it's not called probate which i think is a much nicer word yeah it is it's not like probate if they've got money in all different pockets then there's a lot more work for somebody to do skeletons in the closet yeah anyway hi everyone welcome back to our channel i'm leah i'm ak and we are property couple as you may or may not know we have experienced a really slow process with the purchase of our first house due to probate so we wanted to make a video explaining everything we've learned about probate and because we thought it may help someone else who ends up going through this as well it's a new word to me yeah i don't know yeah i mean when the vendor said i'm afraid that my auntie has died and it will be going through probate i was like oh okay and she was like it's gonna take three or four weeks and i was like okay so i didn't quite know what it was but i knew i should probably read into it three to four weeks seems a bit ambitious as well yeah i know i bet that's what her solicitor said like yeah we'll do it three or four weeks yeah and here we are about six months later still no property no probate obtained what about seven birthdays since all right so what is probate well i'm gonna give you the a definition online and then we can just discuss it yeah the definition online is when someone dies there is a legal process that may need to be undertaken to wind up their affairs pay off any outstanding debts they had and distribute their money and possessions to those entitled to inherit them so basically what it means is sorting someone's out yeah that's basically what it means yeah it must be where it comes from and when someone dies they will have a lot of that needs sorting out makes a lot of sense when we went to view that property and they were upstairs shredding stuff so every document there's clearly a lot of admin involved so with probate there's uh there's two ways you can go about it the first way is that someone in your family also known as a executor can be the person to dish out all this stuff and do all the admin that usually costs a couple of hundred pounds or you can pay a solicitor and it could cost thousands to sort out uh probate depending on how complex one's estate is or how big it is the reason they have two like you said is because if something is really complex and the uh the wash we call them the beneficiaries no the deceased oh the dead person the disease what do we call them we call them the uh it's the opposite of the the deceased yeah the deceased so i guess the reason there's two is because if the deceased has a really complex set of affairs then solicitors i think is a much better place to start because they can break everything down and that's more that speciality isn't it yeah they're just dealing with more stuff more admin and it can get really complex if someone's got property overseas if they've got money in all different pockets then there's a lot more work for somebody to do skeletons in the closet yeah anyway we've mentioned that the executor or the solicitor needs to assess all the assets get everything together and i'm just going to read a few points on this list here so they might need to locate and value the state assets identify any outstanding debts which the government are going to be very pleased to know calculate the state value identify and contact all the beneficiaries of the estate apply to the probate registry for the grant of probate close down any bank accounts settle any outstanding debts prepare the estate accounts and then distribute the remaining estate to beneficiaries in line with terms of the will so what does that mean what does that even mean it's basically what that means is it's just getting everything together everything in order making sure that the debts are taken care of and we understand the lay of the land the labor life and if any of those words were confusing for instance somebody's estate is just all the stuff they own so i feel like they used to use that word in like jane austen novels they'd be like mr darcy's estate i just thought of it as like someone's house yeah but there could be more in their estate that house that bit of land a state overseas so that's a word that you know might be confusing what else what would our state be it would be like a bike a macbook or something this isn't my estate um your bike is like the most expensive thing in our flight so the executor needs to sort out all of this gather all of these documents send it off all of these things need to have a value on them because otherwise it's impossible to put a number next to what the total of this estate is this process can take a really a really long time and there's a few things that actually really can slow this process down you talked about obtaining the grant of probate yeah so obtaining the grant of probate is basically a piece of paper that allows somebody to legally sell property close bank accounts act on the dead person's behalf the dead person and that was about halfway through the list of things that you went through about what's involved in probate so they could get stuck like before they're even you know what i mean like they're halfway through that list and they're like i need this piece of paper to do all of this other stuff so that can slow it down loads and that's actually where we got stuck yeah however the second step is paying the inheritance tax so once the estate is often valued assets have been sold then the solicitor or the executor if it's a family member or friend will have to pay any inheritance tax that is due to hmrc when someone's estate is worth over a certain amount of money there is a quite hefty inheritance tax which we'll probably do a whole other video on because that's another conversation but this money will need to be paid before it can be divvied out to the beneficiaries so it's only fair you've got to operate within the law another thing that can potentially slow probate down is problems with the will yeah so a poorly drafted will can cause significant delays in probate in probate so a poorly drafted will can cause a lot of problems to probate because if something's not done legally properly then the government will probably have a problem with it and find a way to get some more money out of you if someone's written like on a piece of paper and signed it like i will give you my house here's my signature that doesn't count in the eyes of the law so that's why you see all these adverts on tv where people are like we can help you sort out your will don't forget to sort out your will you need to do that homemade or diy will basically yeah if someone's had a conversation with you uh that doesn't count either it needs to be all in paper done properly another thing that can slow probate down is actually selling the property anyone who sold a property probably knows how unpredictable it can be how lengthy it can be if there's a chain and one person in the chain drops out it breaks the whole thing so it's likely there won't be an onward chain yeah it's likely in a probate cell because the owners are just inheriting the money that there won't be a chain but what's not certain is that whether anyone will want that house you just never know really it might not be in a desirable area and so on it could take ages to sell another thing that can slow it down and it might be unlikely is the death of an executor so the person who is responsible for administering the the estate passes away then there has to be another executor appointed so for example if uh i was someone's executor and then i passed away i need to have pointed someone else to sort out the i was meant to go sort out so that can be something that slows it all down another thing that can slow down probate is a missing uh beneficiary so imagine there's some long-lost cousin aunties dogs wives childs let's do some moneys yeah we get we get it yeah yeah yeah you get it right they might be hard to find they might be hard to find i mean it sounds like that that person there who always described is probably pretty tricky to locate yeah and it makes sense because you know all those emails you sometimes get like in your spambot where it's like um you're due two million pounds i don't if you know but someone's left a lot to you in their estate so in their will so contact us to find out how do you get your money their fraud though total fraud like that's not true i mean it could be nothing to do with missing beneficiaries you might actually be contacted by a solicitor legitimately one day because you're beneficiary in a will to family members you no longer talk to that could happen but if you see it in your spam box from a country you don't have any association with i mean gotta ask the questions haven't you yeah and then i think the the final thing that can delay probate a lot is third party delays such as so if there is potentially foreign assets as part of the estate or more complex estates like you said i think you mentioned before property like foreign assets that belong within the state can become quite complex as well yeah selling property overseas like that's a whole other ball game and if you've got to wait for that to be sold before you can inherit the pro pro made money then you're gonna be waiting around a long time also as we mentioned earlier with valuing things up uh if the person has got a load of like unique items like proper antiques that could be worth loads yeah like a very rare what pterodactyl egg what is that from the jurassic era only one was ever created because there was only one of these pterodactyls um it could be worth loads so it has to be fairly valued and sold before the probate money can be divvied out between the beneficiaries so oh the other thing family feud that can slow it down nothing slows down uncommon not uncommon you know someone dies and then everyone argues that can slow things down especially if the said family members don't actually talk then all of their discussions will have to be done in front of a probate judge which means going to court which means more money which means more time so there's just a ton of things that can slow down probate we experienced this slow slow process in trying to buy our first investment property we didn't understand anything to do with probate until doing the research doing the learning and uh and now we do yeah and now we actually decided to uh abandon the sale with the one that's taking so long and just leave all those negative vibes at that door and move on to a different project but we hope that this video has been helpful to anyone who's trying to understand probate a bit further yeah i've really sort of answered any questions you might have on probate if you've got any questions or comments please leave it down below leave it down below and we will probably google it finally i just think there's so many like complex words in here that you're like what who's the estate the beneficiary the what the this so yeah i just think it's worth mentioning oh in scotland it's not called probate it's called co-current oh in scotland it's actually called confirmation it's not called probate which i think is a much nicer word yeah it is like don't forget to follow us on instagram property couple uk and subscribe to our channel because we make videos every single week and we'll see you next time bye you

Channel: Property Couple

Views: 10,975

Keywords: property, propertycouple, help to buy, uk property, probate, uk probate, uk probate process, probate explained, probate 2020, probate explained uk, probate application, probate property, probate solicitor, probate executor, what is an executor of an estate, what is an executor, property purchase uk, property investment uk, property investment

Id: a_3W_ho-w0E

Length: 12min 27sec (747 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 26 2020