Helping clients wind up an estate is not just a legal process, it’s a personal one as well
When you’re coping with a bereavement, it can be daunting to tackle the day-to-day bills, statements and correspondence, let alone the legal aspects of administering the deceased’s Will and transferring their assets.
If you’ve been named as an executor in someone’s Will or been appointed because they died without making one, we can help with all aspects of the executry. At every stage, we’ll help you settle the deceased’s affairs efficiently and with the minimum of fuss.
Practical support from day one
- What to do immediately after someone dies
- Steps to take if no Will has been left, or if one cannot be found
- Understanding your legal and financial responsibilities as an executor
- Calculating the size and value of the estate
- Managing every stage of the process - from ‘Confirmation’ to protecting yourself from personal liability, compliance and reporting for Inheritance Tax, Capital Gains Tax, and Income Tax
- Instructing electronic asset searches, including cryptocurrency, when ownership of assets is unclear
We can carry out a number of these steps on your behalf, making sure the estate is administered correctly and meets all legal and financial requirements.
Dealing with more complex estates
Estates involving foreign assets, property, business interests, or digital assets can be more complex to administer. We will support you on all the different aspects involved, such as valuations, legal access, and distribution.
We can also guide you through obtaining a Bond of Caution for an intestate estate (where there is no Will).
Dealing with concerns or disputes
If you have any concerns regarding an executor who has been named in a Will or if you are an executor facing challenges regarding any of the beneficiaries in someone's Will, we’re here to support you.
Our lawyers deal empathetically and constructively with a wide variety of situations regarding Wills and succession disputes.
FAQs
As an executor, you carry significant legal and financial responsibilities. It’s legally possible to undertake this role without professional help, but instructing a solicitor offers numerous advantages.
Our solicitors are trained in the complexities of Scottish succession law, so they’ll ensure compliance with legal procedures and reduce the risk of errors or delays.
The application for Confirmation (the Scottish equivalent of probate) involves preparing a detailed inventory of the deceased’s assets and submitting it to the Sheriff Court. We can guide you through the required formats and declarations and help you avoid rejections or delay.
Our support on this can be especially important for estates over £36,000, where the court does not provide feedback on rejected applications.
Yes, executors can be held personally liable for mistakes such as premature asset distribution, failure to settle debts, or misidentifying beneficiaries. We help mitigate these risks by making sure that every step of the executry is legally sound and properly documented.
While we do not provide insurance advice, we can liaise with insurance providers to help executors put insurance cover in place, such as executors’ insurance or indemnity policies. These can be used to protect against potential claims or liabilities.
There are different types of cover available:
- Estate asset insurance, helping to ensure that valuable estate assets are adequately insured against loss, damage, or theft during the administration period.
- Missing beneficiary insurance, providing protection against future claims from unknown or untraced heirs. This is especially useful when there is no Will or in complex families.
- Estate indemnity insurance, covering executors against legal claims arising from errors made, such as incorrect distributions or failure to identify liabilities.
- Early distribution insurance, allowing for the safe distribution of estate assets before the expiry of the statutory claim periods, protecting executors if a valid claim arises later.
With the rise of digital banking and financial services, digital asset discovery is increasingly important for executors.
Our team can help with this by instructing electronic asset searches to identify unknown or dormant financial assets, including online accounts, pensions, and investments.
We can help you to place statutory notices to invite claims from creditors. This helps protect executors from personal liability for undisclosed debts.
There are various steps we can help you with here, such as arranging:
- Family tree searches to identify all rightful heirs, especially in intestate estates
- Searches for insolvent beneficiaries, using the Register of Insolvencies, to ensure that distributions are made appropriately (e.g. to trustees in bankruptcy)
Meet the team
We help you put clear plans in place for your family, your assets, and your wishes. That includes wills, executries, powers of attorney, trusts and tax-aware planning, explained in plain language, at your pace.
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