Household Services after Death

A question about : Household Services after Death

One of those questions of scale really, as I get ever closer to embarking on the IHT400... Do HMRC expect you to account for the relative debit/credit positions of services at date of death - council tax, water, gas, electric, motor insurance, car tax blah blah blah etc?

I probably can... but it's a lot of faffing about if I don't need to!

Best answers:

• It's well above. I guess the question was inspired by me finding myself chasing electric / gas for details of the credit position at as close to DoD as they can provide (ie 2 days after, when I took a meter reading) and thinking... well, if they don't advise the position as a matter of course, perhaps HMRC never show any interest in that level of detail...
• Not even remotely minded to play the numbers - was just hoping that someone might turn up and say 'No, don't bother, they're not in the slightest bit interested in that kind of detail, just get the big stuff right!'
  But I figured they wouldn't... Building some behemoth spreadsheets in all this!
• I would go with a fair estimation if accurate figures are not available and that you could justify in the unlikely event they ever get questioned.
• Yes you do need to provide accurate accounts for the items you listed and have documentary evidence to back it up. It should be easy for e.g. council tax and insurances etc as you just write to the organisations informing them of the date of death and asking for the account to be adjusted.
  For utilities it is unlikely you read the meters on the date of death so accounts based on an estimated readings on the death date are sufficient.
• Bottom line is you need to clear all the accounts anyway and get refunds so you will get the information at some point and if you send of the requests along with the big stuff most will have come back in the same time scales anyway.
• I can put accurate figures together for everything - was just hoping I didn't need to!