I’ve made sure to share all relevant account details and passwords with the entire immediate family as Mrs H finds accounts and passwords to be a challenge and I’m not sure that I can do much more than that.
I’ve also given instructions that all the money should be moved somewhere accessible if there’s any suggestion that I’m on my way out. This is mostly about circumventing difficulty with NS&I as they’re reputed to be difficult with probate.
Obviously this is dependent on trust in your immediate family.
I’m doing him a bit of an injustice. When we decided earlier this year to spend what will hopefully be the most active phase of my retirement in France, he did agree we would move to NI at some point before our mid-70s.
If something happens in the meantime, so be it. Man makes plans and God laughs.
Our experience with NS&I and probate was positive. With FIL we wanted to use his money in NS&I to pay the inheritance tax and they were helpful and responsive. And efficient.
I was executor for my mother’s estate and didn’t have a problem with NS&I.
It’s also worth mentioning that you don’t have to freeze someone’s bank account if they die. Someone with legal experience advised me to leave my mother’s open so payments could go in and out and I could cover things like funeral expenses. When I eventually told Lloyds bank that she’d died, they didn’t say a thing about the account being open all that time.
Even people with a good command of the language may forget something important when dealing with an emergency situation, especially when one’s spouse is writhing in pain.
Let’s face it, when dealing with a possible AVC seconds count. Give the transport people the form and they can get on their way to the Urgences with the info they need. Especially important if the patient is unresponsive or unable to communicate.
I do feel that doing the paperwork in advance is best.
The Bank of Scotland, part of the Lloyds group, threatened my brother with a report of fraud when, as the executor, he did exactly this with our deceased mother’s account. He had to point out that, had he fraudulent intent, he’d have emptied the account rather than pay her gas bill.
We opened executor accounts with Lloyds to deal with those sorts of things - but mainly as FIL loved playing the stock market and had near on a 100 tiny holdings that all had to be liquidated. And same for MIL One reason my aim is to leave with just an NS&I account and the AVs.
I assume you are talking about the UK Jennifer, that is irrelevant in France. A deceased person’s account is frozen automatically from the moment of death and not freed until
all the inheritors are discovered and agreed. There is one exception to this rule, the funeral people send their bill to the account, or the notaire controlling it, and it is paid directly and promptly. Very handy as that is one worry the surviving spouse doesn’t have.
However, if the inheritors are difficult or don’t accept, this process can last a long time. My wife’s savings account is still frozen 27 months after her death and I suspect an awkwardness in the behaviour of her children, or incompetence by the notaire, possibly a combination of both.
My wife needed some surgery which involved breaking the toes and resetting them in a better position. The surgeon explaining the operation was very serious and professional. He spoke slowly and clearly in easy to understand French. When ever he told us something he asked us what he had just said to confirm that we had understood.
At the end of the consultation, he asked if we had any questions. I said “yes, how long after the operation before she can play football?”
He sat back and stared at me for several very long seconds before realising it was just a joke. That changed the whole tone of the consultation as he realised we could probably cope and he was then much more friendly.
I do feel for Eric’s mum. In my chequered experience of the French health system, I think her situation is quite unusual. Medical staff will usually make an effort to communicate. When I was stuck on a difficult phrase they went and fetched an English patient who spoke excellent French, to help me out.
Tale of two deaths .. I was the accepted family member dealing with my mother’s finances and she had put my name as joint account a few years previously. ..So I had no difficulty paying insurance’s , collecting pensions and paying the care home . My sister’s dealt with more medical matters … .I was also an executor . My Aunt , her younger sister had to be removed and put into care with dementia and I had had to set up her Enduring Power of Attorney …so totally legal with High Court papers.
In the case of my mother ..I wrote cheques from the account for the funeral and a few days later I gave the bank the Death Cert. ..No problem .I had no reason to withdraw anything from her account
In the case of my aunt I immediately registered the Death got the Death Cert and handed it to her Solicitor and informed him of the death . Next morning I went to the bank .. basically looking for the state of her account up to the day of death … I just wanted a copy of my stewardship . Absolutely NO DICE ..
Moral … Do what you need to do and Then inform them … A person is not legally dead until there is registration of Death Certificate
That was the approach we took, better to apologise than to seek permission, though it briefly looked like it might have come back to bite us. Well, bite my brother at least. All done and dusted now but we had a few moments.
It took seven weeks to get a death certificate for my mother in 2024 because the doctor fouled up the paperwork, then forgot and then the registry lost it all so yes, as you say, make use of the time before all the sh**e kicks in. Very different here in France and very quick too
