Irwin Mitchell LLP is a team of legal and financial experts with offices across the UK. Emma Spicer, Assistant Estate Administration Team Manager at Irwin Mitchell has over 24 years’ experience in Probate, dealing with all aspects of Estate Administration. Irwin Mitchell has lifestyle and estate planning experts throughout the country however, Emma works with the main estate administration team which is based in Sheffield.
Emma Spicer explains: “We hold huge Will Banks at Irwin Mitchell so many of our estate administration enquiries might start out with someone searching for a Will, or reporting a death where they know Irwin Mitchell are the appointed executors. Depending on if that person is unrelated or an executor or beneficiary will determine next steps.
“We represent clients across the nation, so if relatives would like legal advice and support, we would normally have an initial phone conversation with a beneficiary or executor. This discussion is to assess and establish if professional help is actually needed. If there are multiple joint assets and no IHT involvement there may be no need for Probate and therefore, executors can sometimes manage the distribution of assets themselves if they wish.
“Where we are appointed as executors we use Estatesearch to assist with asset discovery to establish the full extent of the estate, and if we are assisting executors we will offer the service to them. One of the main challenges with the Probate process is that it is lengthy and managing the family’s expectations can help avoid further upset at what is already a difficult time.
“Estatesearch’s Financial Profile Search helps us speed up the asset discovery side of the process. It is a cost effective and efficient way of making enquiries of more than 150 organisations, searching over 450 companies and brands including banks, building societies, investment managers, share registrars, pension providers and insurers to help identify accounts. We can then make further enquiries if a financial institution confirms the subject holds, for example, an account or a pension that we were previously unaware of.
“We recently worked on a case where a lady had passed away where the local council had deputyship. This meant they had power of attorney over the monies held and so should have had full knowledge of all assets. However, because the lady had lived in a nursing home and deputyship had been awarded to the council due to incapacity it would have been particularly challenging to establish the full nature of the estate during life let alone death. When we completed a financial asset search with Estatesearch they discovered an unknown bank account. Further enquiries revealed an account containing £6,000 which we would have been unlikely to locate without this search.
“This example demonstrates the importance of financial asset searches as surprises can come to light even where a deputy would normally have all the information.
“Using Estatesearch’s secure, online portal for ordering searches is easy. I like the way multiple addresses can be input which is useful if the deceased moved frequently during their lifetime. It is a cost effective method of contacting a broad range of financial institutions and so the search means we can offer a more comprehensive service to our clients.
“We also use Estatesearch to place Section 27 Notices. This is an efficient way to reach any potential creditors, and protect the estate from unknown creditors making claims after the expiry of the notices and the estate is distributed.
“As a firm we know that dealing with the passing of a loved one is an incredibly stressful time and it brings up many emotions. The financial aspect of Probate can make this all the more difficult between different family members, so our goal is to make the process as smooth as possible. We are here to help and Estatesearch helps us to complete the necessary searches as efficiently as possible.”
Originally Published in Today’s Wills and Probate