Immediate Steps

The next of kin will have to register their relative’s death with the Register of Births, Marriages and Deaths. You will then have to start the process of arranging your relative’s funeral. Hopefully you will be aware of your relative’s funeral wishes, but if not, you could look amongst their paperwork to see if they had noted down anywhere their wishes or if they had a Will.

Steps thereafter

It is important to establish whether your relative had a Will or not. This will determine what steps are required to be carried out.

If your relative did make a Will, the executor or executors named in their Will have the authority to deal with their estate. The executors should make an appointment with us, to ascertain exactly what is required to administer their relative’s estate.

If after making all reasonable enquiries it appears your relative never made a Will, depending on the value of their estate and what type of assets they had, will determine the next stage in administering their estate. If Confirmation (the English equivalent of which is called Probate) is required, then an application to the local Court must be submitted to have the next of kin appointed as an executor.

Our dedicated Private Client team are on hand to provide advice and support throughout this process.

There are many factors which will determine how long it will take to administer your relative’s estate such as the amount of assets your relative had, the value of your relative’s estate, whether your relative died leaving a Will or not, whether there are any potential Legal Rights claimants and so forth. Our Private Client team are on hand to help navigate you and your family through this process.

The potential legal expenses in administering someones estate could be: registering the Will for preservation purposes; Confirmation dues charged by the court and if a property has to be sold or transferred, the initial marketing costs, fees and outlays in selling the property.

Our Client Guide sets out our fees for Executry Administration work.

Responsibility for payment of legal fees, VAT and expenses, rests with the executors, although normally these costs are deducted from sums realised by us in administering the estate and prior to distributing the estate to the beneficiaries.

As a matter of law in Scotland, all spouses, civil partners and children, are entitled to make a claim on a share of the deceased persons net free moveable estate, these claims are known as legal rights and the executors must take such rights into consideration in their administration of the estate.

If you are nominated as an executor and you do not wish to act, you are not legally required to accept the appointment. If there is another executor named, they maybe happy to act on their own. You maybe asked to sign a letter of resignation, resigning your appointment. If you are the only named executor, you may be asked to sign a deed assuming someone else to be the executor and then you can resign your appointment.

You are entitled to be reimbursed for any expenses you settle in your role as executor and for any out of pocket expenses, such as petrol. You will have to keep and produce receipts. Executors are not entitled to be paid for their time in carrying out their duty as an executor.

A Power of Attorney ends on the Granter’s death. Your appointment as Attorney comes to an end on the Granter’s death. The Attorney no longer has authority to deal with the Granter’s finances once they die, unless the are also nominated under their Will as an executor.