My dad popped his clogs at 70 five years back (Christmas Eve as it happened). Luckily, Mother is still going strong, so there were no major problems with tax. We made no allowance whatsoever for the contents of the workshop, that I got in exchange for being executor and spending a fortnight clearing rubbish or the collections of china, jewellery and books that my sisters got. It would have been noticeably under the £255k threshold at the time, even to an optimist. Mum has, sensibly, moved to a smaller house and reduced any liability to inheritance tax by having some very nice holidays :-)
They don't - but Executors are required by law to submit estimated accounts to HMC&E. It's not always neccessary to obtain "official" valuations from a Probate Valuer, but Executors do need to be able to justify any valuations. The internet has been a great resource for this - evidence of prices for individual items are readily available, using completed items on E-Bay, for example, or houseprices.co.uk for a valuation on any dwelling.
I'm joint executor of my late mother's estate. We submitted the "short form" of accounts to HMCE, where the "before tax" value of the estate slightly exceeded the tax threshold. A nice lady at the Probate office telephoned, and suggested that some values were "adjusted", to bring the value to at least £500 under the threshold - so we reduced the estimated value of the house contents by £1500, stating on the form that many items in the home were jointly owned by my brother, me, and our late mother - making it very difficult to provide an accurate value. This was possible because both of us were living in the same home as her for the last couple of years of her life, and clearly already had "benefit of enjoyment" on the house contents. The changes to the form were made by the lady at HMC&E, so we didn't need to re-submit.
The accounts, of course, are only an estimate - and if anything from the estate is sold, rather than transferred in title to beneficiaries of the estate, the accounts will need to be adjusted. Fortunately, we haven't had to adjust upwards - because if the value were to exceed the threshold, we would then have to submit the "full" accounts, which DOES require a detailed valuation of everything in the estate - usually item by item, unless the disposal is as a "job lot". Effectively, an asset register has to be created... (see further comments below). It's relatively easy to estimate values these days, using the internet - e.g. completed listings on E-bay, houseprices.co.uk, etc. The only "official" valuations we had to pay for (which is tax allowable against the estate) were for personal jewellery, and stocks and shares (to find the closing price at date of death, I registered on-line with The Stock Exchange, for a small fee).
You only have to do that if the value of the estate exceeds the tax threshold, and you have to submit the full account. Even then, they're unlikely to send someone out, provided your valuations appear reasonable "on paper", and can be supported with evidence.
Which is allowable when estimating the value of the estate, and if you don't intend to sell anything (but simply transfer title of ownership), then it's relatively easy.
It's geared up for everyone. If there's no "real estate" involved, it's not always necessary to obtain probate either! It wasn't necessary to obtain probate on my late father's will, because all monies and property deeds were registered in joint names...
Not so easy since the advent of IR35 and the abolition of Advanced Corporation Tax; this latter causing you to pay an extra 10% as income tax which you didn't use to.
One of GB's many stealth taxes. In fact, an exceptionally cunning one: a massive revenue raiser (the abolition of what was a carefully designed system to reduce the double taxation of one lot of profits/dividends) was made by the usual politician's misinformation (= lies) appear to be the abolition of a "tax" (advance corporation tax) which wasn't really a tax at all.
Not sure what I am going to do with the B31 - you'd never get it in your metro ;o)
Dad bought the B31 from new (1953), walked into the dealers with his father and said I'll take that one mate, paid cash and rode it home. Caused all kinds of problems at the dealers as virtually no one bought a bie for cash and they weren't geared up to handle all that cash on a saturday after the banks had closed!
I always told him he should have had another tenner on tick and bought the Goldstar instead of an old chug a lug B31!
was getting an Espace wise? When you came over last year i got the distinct impression that you may just have Magpie tendencies ;o)
The B31 won't go to waste thats for sure. Ideally I'd like to put it back on the road myself but I don't anticipate that I am likely to have the time or spare cash to do that for some years to come. That said it has been in a nice dry shed for nearly 20 years so a few more years shouldn't hurt and I could get a few bits sorted out in the mean time.......
Maybe once the garage contents is sorted I'll move it in there and evaluate what needs to be done. That said, well you've seen the garage, I don't think there is much chance of getting it in there for some considerable time!
Assuming it's in Cambridge, the local auction house would be Willingham Auctions (
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) who will quite happily do tools and non-antique stuff (tomorrow's sale has a selection of chainsaws and a ride-on mower, for example) though they might not be best for ultra-technical bits. I think they'll do valuations (but it'll probably cost). Other than that, there are some house clearance companies around - there's one in Hope Yard (off Mill Road).
For the stuff going to the tip, there's always Freecycle or ucam.adverts.giveaway. At least give it a chance not to let it go to waste
- it's remarkable what you can get rid of that way.
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