Grant of Confirmation

A question about : Grant of Confirmation

Hi, I’m trying to fill in the form for Grant of Confirmation for my dad’s estate (C1). I’m trying to do this on my own without a solicitor. I think I understand the main issues, it should be such a simple situation, but what exactly to put on the form is driving me crazy . Would be grateful if anyone could help.

Background: There is a will that was made with English solicitors, although my dad was domiciled in Scotland when he died. The main wording of the will is on one sheet but there is a cover sheet that has been attached to it by the solicitors which hasn’t been signed. My mum was named as executor but she died sometime before my dad and there is a clause in the will that says I will be executor if my mum has already died when my dad dies. Likewise, I am now sole beneficiary of the entire estate. The value of the house is about Ј100,000 (I have had this professionally valued) and the value of bank accounts about Ј5000, so there should be no inheritance tax issues.

The first problem is the wording to put in paragraph 2 of “the Declaration” on page 2. The following is what I was thinking of putting:

Quote:

I am particularly worried about whether I need to make some reference to the fact that I am in some sense a “substitute” executor, and that mum would have been sole executor if she hadn’t died (I found some wording for this for when Confirmation has already been granted and the appointed executor dies before carrying out their duties, but mine is a different situation where the substitution is in the will only.) Because the wording I put above could equally apply to a will where say, my mum and me had been named as joint executors from the start. In either case it should be clear I am now entitled to be the sole executor, but just don’t know whether you have to deal with the distinction for the purposes of the archaic wording of Confirmation!

There are more questions I have unfortunately will try and post them soon!

Best answers:

• The second main problem is what exactly to put as part of the "docquet" on the will. This is what I was thinking of putting:
  Quote:
• The third main issue is, as has already been mentioned, the solicitors attached a cover sheet to what would otherwise be a one sheet will. The cover sheet just says "The Will of [FATHER'S NAME]", and has the date the will was made, along with the name and address of the solicitors firm ([FATHER'S NAME and the date the will was made, and details of the solicitor witnesses are on the will itself too of course). In other words, it shouldn't materially affect the will in any way. But I don't want to remove it as it would leave a hole in the corner of the will that might be construed as indication of Codicils etc. According to the scottish legislation, a will needs to be signed on every sheet by the person making the will. I am hoping that the cover sheet will not be considered part of the will for this purpose, otherwise I will have to go about proving the will in some other way. (I presume a letter from the English solicitors?)
• DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES remove the front page! I have known wills to be queried at the probate office because there have been rust marks from an old paper clip on the pages - with no evidence of what was attached! It required additional affidavits from the solicitors who prepared the will before it was accepted.
• The final points are to do with the inventory:
  1. The notes for completion of C1 say to put separate figures for capital and interest for bank accounts. But the letter I have from the bank only gives me the total balances for the accounts on the date of death. Will it be OK to put just these totals? (Bearing in mind they are only about Ј5000 in total value anyway.)
  2. What level of detail is required for household contents, assuming I don't use a professional valuer? Can I just put "Household Contents" and a rough figure, say Ј10000? Do I have to put that I estimated the figure? Basically, as I am the sole beneficiary and the inheritance tax threshold is so far away based on the value of the house and bank accounts, I don't really see why this should be an issue, but I need to know if the Sheriff Courts are picky about this? (Either then I will need to pay to have a professional valuation or go through everything on ebay!)
• Thanks thorsoak, that confirms what I thought, I defnitely won't then. I'm still left with the problem of whether this essentially unnecessary coversheet make the will invalid under Scottish legislation because it hasn't been signed.
• Thanks for telling me I can put "balance at date of death including interest", instead of putting separate figures for interest and capital, skintmumofone.
  I understand that the value of household items is technically meant to be the open market value of the items (ie "what they would sell for"). What I was asking is in practice what level of scrutiny do the Sheriff Court apply to this and what level of detail and proof they require. (Despite what I said above I do now see that there is a reason why even in my case they might want to scrutinise, due to the rights of family in Scotland, regardless of the will. I am in fact the only child, but I don't think there is anything in the application to let the court know this, so they need to cover themselves for future possible claims maybe.)
  Thanks also for confirming the pickiness of the Edinburgh court in general. It won't be the Edinburgh court but this unfortunately confirms what I had suspected about the process. (By the way I have gleaned most of my information so far from people asking opinions of solicitors on justanswer.com, I have no idea why there is so little information on this on the internet - presumably becaue people just give up and pay a solicitor to deal with it, or else those with estates below Ј35000 are handheld through it anyway.)
  I did not receive your email (personal message?), skintmumofone.
• Savvy_Sue, unfortunately I can't just go to the court (which one?) and say "I am an only child and so would inherit everything under the authorty of either the will or the intestacy rules of either England or Scotland, so it doesn't matter!"
  It's the procedure that I'm having difficulty with, not my ultimate entitlement.
• Just to be clear, by "valid" above in relation to the will, I mean the will conforms to the Requirements of Writing (Scotland) Act 1995. I believe that a will will still be accepted by the Sheriff Court with further evidence even if it isn't valid. I am reasonably certain that it doesn't make any difference where the will was made (apart from the fact that it is less likely to conform to Scottish Law if not made there), but I could be wrong.
  Finding out exactly what further evidence would be required, getting the further evidence to the court, and presumably having to alter the declaration and maybe the docquet on the will itself, are all non-trivial matters for a person not used to doing this. (And would involve expense.)
• Hi NiceD, just read your post and if I can help I will, I am not a new user but prefer people not to know my original name. My husband and myself have recently been through this with my father-in-law, dealt with in Glasgow sheriff court, you docquet the will yourself on first page top of page and make sure the date signed matches the date of both c1 and c5. Anything else I can help with let me know.
• Thanks for the reply skintmumofone now received private message. I'm sorry about your uncle, hope his recovery goes well.
  I've not done it yet but am hoping to get it submitted this week.
  Thanks very much for the offer of help littlewife, most of my further questions are still above, but I realise it's a lot!
  There is something I mentioned above that I now believe is incorrect in that I thought the process was you send forms C1 and C5 and any supporting documents in and then they check them and then you go in to make an oath. I got this wrong I think - you just submit it and then they issue confirmation if it is correct or send back to you if not (this still creates a problem in my mind about what the actual date of application is if you have to submit a new C1 for instance). There is no oath in person like in England.
  I think The Requirements of Writing Act is potentially relevant in terms of the validity of the will, if the cover sheet is deemed to be a separate page (as I mentioned above) (I don't understand your statment above about this skintmumofone):
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• For location if location is Glasgow you write The Sheriffdom of Glasgow and Strathkelvin, you can sign docquet ands date c1 and c5 on day you hand them in, they gave us help on writing doquet.
• Hi I finally got this done. Thanks for the help on this forum last year . It turned out that the staff at the Sheriff's court I went to were extremely nice and very helpful. With this in mind (that they might have been a little more willing to overlook any errors in form and procedure than others might be), I'm spending a bit of time to write up the details of my application for Grant of Confirmation and hopefully this will be a bit of use to anyone else doing this.
  A summary of the procedure is that as arranged on the telephone with the court I sent by post the undated and unsigned forms C1 and C5 and a copy of the will into the court. They checked everything and then I made an appointment to see the Sheriff to go in with the original will and at that appointment dated the forms (to the date I went in) and wrote and signed the docquet on the will (the Sheriff was willing to help with the wording). (This is as littlewife also experienced, I am not sure all courts would allow it to be done this way for estates over Ј35,000?)Also obviously I had to take the usual documents to prove ID on the day.
  The wording that I put in paragraph 2 of the “declaration” on page 2 of the C1 form was (That I am) “[MY NAME], daughter and executrix nominate of the late [FATHER’S NAME] conform to the will of the deceased who resided at [FATHER’S ADDRESS], dated [DATE OF WILL] which is produced herewith, docquetted and signed by me as relative hereto. The wife of the deceased, [MOTHER’S NAME], is nominated as executrix in the will, but she died on [DATE MOTHER DIED].” The court found no problem with this.
  Inventory
  After writing the heading “Estate in Scotland” in the description Column I wrote the title “Heritable Estate” then I listed the house using the wording: “[ADDRESS OF THE HOUSE INCLUDING POSTCODE]” and then “being the subjects described in the disposition by [NAMES OF PREVIOUS OWNERS] in favour of [NAMES OF MY PARENTS] recorded GRS [DISTRICT] [DATE OF RECORDING] as valued by [NAME OF SURVEYORS]”. This is probably the bit where you need to put the most attention as it may go through confirmation OK but there still might be problems in the conveyancing if you get this wrong. I would think that if you are planning to get a solictior to do the conveyancing asking them to check this wording only would be a good idea, and if they are reasonable I don't think they should charge much if any extra on top of the conveyancing. Note that in general legal terms what I put was a “conveyancing description” (albeit a short form) of the house, mostly based upon the previous disposition that conveyed the house (recorded in Sasines register). I knew I had to do this from reading textbooks on conveyancing in Scotland. Be aware that in the notes for completion of form C1 for “Heritable Estate” it says “Please list each item of heritable estate (land, houses etc) in Scotland, giving sufficient detail in the description to allow each item to be recognised as a separate part of the estate”. This is misleading to the average person and I think you really do need the “conveyancing description” so do be careful! (Perhaps things will be easier with the new system of Land Registration, I don't know.)
  I wrote a heading “Moveable Estate” in the “description column and put “Household Goods and Personal Effects” and then “value estimated by executrix” and put the total value that I had worked out from doing a real inventory and estimating the value of individual things using my own knowledge and ebay (so it was not a round figure). This was accepted by the court without issue (of course they only had a final figure they had no idea how I'd arrived at it). I didn't want a house clearance company just getting rid of everything, but that would be an alternative and their quote would give you a value to put here if your feelings are different to mine or if there might be some contention or the estate is near an IHT threshold. I also had a separate entry for Jewelery which was prepared by a professional valuer (I think perhaps I wasted money here as the valuation fee was a significant percentage of the value of the jewelery and I might have just estimated this myself and grouped it with the Household Goods and Personal Effects). The main point here is that it seems you need very little granularity in the inventory, despite that some historical Inventories for Confirmation that I've seen on the Historic Scotland website really do list every last item down to the frying pan!
  The bank accounts however were all listed separately. The account numbers were given (I wasn't too keen on doing this as it is public record but the advice I had is that the account numbers were needed) and I put “balance at date of death including interest” under each account, as advised above. This was accepted without issue by the court.
  Will and Docquet
  As discussed above, the will, made with English solicitors, was written on two sides of one sheet of paper and also an additional coversheet was attached to it. I did not take the coversheet off the will, and it was accepted without a problem.
  On the day I went in to take the will in and sign all the forms the docquet I wrote on the will (not the coversheet) was: “This is the will referred to in my Declaration of this date to the Inventory of Estate of the late [FATHER'S NAME], signed at [TOWN IN WHICH SHERIFF COURT IS IN] Sheriff Court on this date [DATE OF DECLARATION ie DATE I WENT IN]”. Then I just signed underneath this. The Sheriff was happy to advise that this wording would be fine. Whether all the concerns that I had above about the wording and placement of the date and location would be of concern in a stricter court I don't know.
  I hope this is of help to someone. If you have any questions put them here – I may check back from time to time but no promises!
  Overall the court were extremely helpful but the procedure is a total mess compared to the relatively straightforward form for probate in England (I haven't done that mind you, but have looked at the form!). It is basically achieving the same thing substantively so it shouldn't be so complicated and archaic. This procedure for applying for Grant of Confirmation should definitely be reformed in my opinion.