mocky-Dower
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All wills have to go through probate to make sure they are valid. A will is just a set of wishes, not a list of instructions, so it has to be examined to see that it is legal and valid. The probate office decide if a will is valid and then grant probate to the executor which allows that person to lawfully gain access to the deceased's estate and get property conveyed into the new owner's name etc. A bank is correct not to release a sum as large as 15k to someone who doesn't have the lawful authority to gain access. My dad died recently and it's in probate now however is moving very fast and they are about to issue letters of administration (because he died intestate, there's no executor, there's an administrator but it's similar). Good luck.Hi There,
My mother died last October, she left her house to her children and some money she had in the bank to her grandchildren (all was to be divided equally) she stated all of this in her Will, in the will she made a relative of hers (who happens to be a solicitor) the executor.
We got a letter from the executor (the solicitor) saying that the bank would not release the money from the bank account because my mothers estate exceeded €25,000, and that probate proceedings would have to be issued.
Fair enough. However, my mother had her house paid for i.e. no mortgage with the bank in question and the money she had in the savings account was €15,000, so why the probate proceedings? Is it to legally transfer the deeds of the house to her children ?
A little worried as regards the bill for the solicitors work regarding probate and with the relative link we hadn't asked about how much he will charge
Thanks.
... I thought a Will was a legal document and its sounds like with probate you have to get another legal document...
... and the fact that my mothers house was paid for (mortgage was cleared) that this would not concern the bank who initiated the probate when the solicitor tried to release the 15K for the grand children.
What if she owned a classic car that was worth 30K and the bank knew nothing about this and our solicitor went to the bank to release any savings, would they insist on probate in that situation?...
If a will is to be made legal it must be examined and "proven" by the probate office. I'm sure many wills never see probate owing to there being so few assets that survivors aren't bothered with it. A bank may release small amounts of savings to the next of kin with just a death cert and no grant of probate but for larger sums they will not. To transfer a house etc. to a survivor would require probate also.Just on the side, do all wills have to go through probate of is is only when they exceed 25K ?
Sorry, maybe I wasn't clear when I said "all wills must go to probate to make sure they are valid". Perhaps I should have said "for a will to be legal it must go though probate".
I thought 'right of survivorship' has nothing to do with wills at all and was to do with when a person dies and the property they owned was owned as 'joint tenancy' with another and the property simply stays out of probate because of this. The property doesn't pass to the surviving spouse because of anything written in the will, it passes by a completely seperate mechanism which means nothing written in a will can alter the survivor becoming sole owner-so the will doesn't need probate because the will is irrelevant in that case.Wills are acted on all the time without the need for probate. Most common would be where a property is jointly owned between husband and wife and there is a small bank account if one party dies leaving all to the other the joint property goes by survivorship and the small account will go by the will with no need at all for probate.
If a tenancy in common could be implied and a will is required to ensure it seen as a joint tenancy, then wouldn't that will need to go through probate to establish the validity of the will?Correct insofar as right of survivorship normally acts outside will. However sometimes it needs to be specifically addressed in the will if the joint tenancy (or joint bank account) could actually be implied to be a tenancy in common (and these are now more common than in the past in non husband and wife situations). The reference to it in the post was merely an illustration of a common situation not requiring probate.
From a practical point of view how do you get to see a will if it does not go through probate ? I Would then assume you ask the executor if known, but if they refused?
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