Probate is the court’s authority; given to a person or persons to administer a deceased person’s estate and the document issued by the Probate Service is called a Grant of Representation. This document is usually required by the asset holders or creditors of the deceased as proof to show the correct person or persons have the Probate Service’s authority to administer a deceased person’s estate. These days probate is mostly about whether or not there is any IHT payable.

When a person dies somebody has to deal with their estate (money property and possessions left) by collecting in all the money, paying any debts and distributing what is left to those people entitled to it. Be under no illusions if any UK citizen dies worth more than £350,000 or so the Government want and must be paid the Death tax ; 50 years ago it only happened to Lord and Lady Whom Ever who were often obliged to sell off the family silver or even a part of the the estate but nowadays as most families in the South are becoming aware Death Tax or under its relatively new (1986) name the Inheritance Tax is a major league taxation player.

More Money for the Chancellor

IHT is lucrative for the Government: it is estimated that the amount collected by the Revenue has doubled over the 10 years 1994 - 2004 to £2.4bn. The number of people paying IHT to 2004 went up by 55 per cent since 1998. Here at Just Lawyers we spend up to 25% of our work time on Probate cases dealing with the HMRC and the IHT aspect of the deceased affairs. As we do the work we feel there is a culture - the reverse of "innocent until proven guilty" at work here ; guilty of having vast and valuable estates until Just Lawyers proves you innocent so yes we would want to be instructed to act in your Probate but first come and see us now about the closely related lifetime issues. Get your 'affairs' in order now.

Probate of all the worldwide assets

If you are a family lucky enough to own a Villa e.g. in Europe you should know that making a "Spanish Will" to deal separately with that will not in any way lessen the burden that your family will inevitably face. If you come to us and we make your Discretionary Trust Wills we can also address the problem of a valuable overseas Villa swelling your assets ; whilst tax evasion is quite illegal we can help you with a perfectly legal and very accessible tax avoidance strategy : Don't wait for family to attend to your Probate Contact Just Lawyers now