When Mrs R died her two children came to see us about administering her estate. We explained the various steps that they would need to take which included dealing with the Inheritance, Capital Gains and Income Tax matters, applying for a Grant of Probate and ensuring that they generally dealt with the estate according to the law. Both the children felt that they were too busy to deal with the administration of the estate themselves and they appointed Darbys as their attorneys so that we could deal with the administration on their behalf.
Mrs J was appointed as executrix for her friend Miss P. The Will left Miss P's estate to various charities. The estate included a flat and funds held in a bank account. Mrs J was not aware that Miss O had any creditors however we advised Mrs J to place statutory adverts for any claims against the estate. Mrs J received notice of a loan £10,000 and she was able to pay the debt from the estate before she had distributed payments to the charities. Had she not placed the advertisements and had paid the estate to the charities Mrs J could have been personally liable for the payment of the loan and any other unknown debts which were discovered up to 6 years after the death of Miss P.
We acted for Mr G who was the Executor of his sister's estate. His sister rented a property and had assets worth £20,000. However she also had debts of £30,000 and so her estate was insolvent. We advised Mr G not to pay any estate liabilities as, where there is an insolvent estate, there is a specific order in which the creditors must be paid. If these rules are not followed then the Executor can become personally liable to the creditors. We prevented this by advising Mr. G, helping him apply for a Grant of Probate and dealing with the creditors to ensure that the estate was administered according to the law.