hiriskpaul wrote:Lootman wrote:hiriskpaul wrote:If someone has most of their savings in shares and/or funds/ITs and there is insufficient cash in the estate to pay IHT, how can executors proceed? It does not look as though brokers will let you sell shares without a Grant, which you cannot get before paying IHT!
Yeah, you have to remember that probate does not exist to help the deceased, or the family or beneficiaries of the deceased. It is designed purely to protect the creditors of an estate, mostly the taxman of course.
If someone told me that I had 3 months to live then I would transfer all my assets to my loved ones. That would not legally avoid IHT but it would at least avoid probate. And it would then be for the taxman to claim his pound of flesh rather than putting the onus on the grieving relatives.
Old legal saying - possession is nine points of the law, or some such.
Would that avoid probate? I am not sure. The will still has to be proved and there may be other issues
If my estate is empty, because I gave away all my assets whilst alive, then there would be no need to "prove the will". The will becomes moot and irrelevant if my estate has zero value and there are no debts to repay. Other than requests for a particular type of funeral or statements about personal effects.
hiriskpaul wrote:A big potential problem I can see with that approach is when there are large unrealised capital gains in the estate. Selling before death would then result in a CGT bill that would be avoided if the disposals were done after death.
Yes, you would lose the resetting of cost basis upon death and that could be worth a lot of money. But that assumes that you will never want or need that money anyway, and so it is basically intended only for your beneficiaries. Right now I am more worried about changes to CGT or IHT that a Labour government might introduce say in 2025.