Form PA1
Form IHT217
Form IHT205
Form R27
These are just some of the delightfully named pieces of paper I’ve had to fill out since Dad died. Although they’re available online you can’t complete any of them electronically. All must be downloaded, understood (and let me tell you these forms were designed with machines in mind, not humans), completed and sent off somewhere. Then you wait for your court interview which will lead to the issuing of a grant. This grant is a legal document to allow me to administer Dad’s estate.
Time passes slowly so you call to ask what’s going on and are told ‘no you can’t have the interview at the court building you asked for, we haven’t opened that building in over nine months’. Turns out HM Courts and Tribunal Service ‘offers’ these interviews at seven locations in and around London, and only one of them is regularly open. Hmmm, maybe it’s time to rethink that choice thing huh?
In due course a letter arrives and so yesterday I attended court for an interview. It was dry, necessary, neither polite nor impolite and mercifully brief. I had a few questions but the interviewer seemed to know nothing beyond the specific process of conducting the interview. Maybe I expect too much but this human interaction felt as dehumanising as the paperwork that had gone before.
I stood on the steps outside court after the interview so I could check in on Foursquare – (what a nerd!) and this post about making a will and stuff from Laurie Ruettimann popped onto my screen. Carole and I made our wills when we got married nigh on twenty years ago, and we keep our affairs in order so that when one or both of us dies….well you get the picture I hope.
My Dad was a super guy and he didn’t make a will. He did not expect to die on January 22nd 2012 and I didn’t expect him to either. Though yesterday was an important procedural milestone, here I am this Saturday morning staring at a screen and another huge pile of papers that stand between me and my grief. I totally know Dad wouldn’t have wanted this, and I don’t want it for you – that is for sure.
Do you know people you love and care about? Do you own stuff? Do you have a will?
Yes, Yes and No. Time for action! Thanks for the nudge!
Doooo ittttt 🙂
I would also add on insurance. My brother-in-law was killed in a work accident aged 27, leaving behind a wife and two daughters. She has struggled financially since (especially when it transpired that the employer didn’t have adequate liability insurance, plus he was a sub-contractor even though to all intents and purposes he was a full-time employee of the bloke).
I have personal life insurance, insurance to pay off the mortgage, plus my current employer has death in service cover for all employees. It would be one small crumb of comfort I guess.
Good point Robert, thank you. And though it might seem a small crumb as you suggest, its absence would be sorely missed.
It’s amazing how dry and dehumanising bureaucracy can be. I’m reading a history book at the moment and here’s the full transcript of a notification during WWII.
“Immediate from air ministry Kingsway P 1963 17/5/43 information received through the international red cross committee states that your son AC 2 Herbert John Leaver is a prisoner of war in Japanese hands.”
Pretty cold and formal, not much comfort or even information there. Apparently that was all the family got. It seems like the mindset is not much different now.
To your main point, in 1986 my grandfather died, in his 80’s, without a will and the whole thing is still not resolved!
Thank you John, this is interesting stuff, and it shows that people are slow learners sometimes. I hope you manage to conclude your Grandfather’s affairs.
The state does not even manage to make your last act on earth dignified. Shame on them.
Thank you Peter. And the trouble is I don’t think they set out to make it suck so bad. It feels a shame that we’re not consulted on ways to make these things better though.
Sorry to hear your experience of this probate process was so dire Doug – it should not be so.
When my mother in law passed away last year without a will we also followed this path. In Norfolk, the process of registering her death and then being interviewed at the courts by the official was respectful, kind and supportive. Yes there were forms and process but the people who guided us through this at the courts were memorable for their humanity.
I know this won’t change your experience and I’m cautious to point the finger at “the big city”. I just hope sharing our experience is helpful.
Unlike the solicitors who wanted £1500 & 1% of the estate for doing the form filling we would have to supply the info for anyway. Parasites…
If nothing else motivates you to get that will then just think about that. It’s your beneficiaries who should receive your estate not the legal profession.
Thank you David. You are right, it should not be so and your experiences are encouraging so I appreciate you sharing them.
I’ve also had ‘offers of help’ for form filling in return for what seemed like an eye popping share of the proceeds. I worry that folk who convince themselves they’re ‘not up to it’ end up getting taken advantage of. I don’t think that is the intention of the state but for sure it is a result of all the paperwork.
You’ve got me thinking – I might share my experiences with my local MP and see what (if any) appetite there is for some reform and simplification in this process.
The process of closing mobile phone accounts and subscriptions is equally interesting. “Can you give me the person’s password, please.” “No, sorry, he’s dead.” “Well, I’m afraid I’m not authorised to talk to you because the person didn’t give us a letter of permission naming you before he/she died.”
It’s an endless loop of frustration. And sometimes not quite as simple as just cancelling the payment to them. If it’s a utility bill or a phone bill and not in a joint name, then the problem ends up with the surviving partner who can’t make any changes on the account.
Good nudge, Doug. Made me think about which of our bits and pieces of paperwork need to be tidied up.
Try this one Vandy – you may know that child tax credits are applied for using the details of both parents. In fact, whenever you get a calculation from them both parents get them separately – even if they live in the same house. But you have to chose one parent who the payments are made in the name of.
In our case, my wife had the child tax credits paid into her account, I had child benefit paid into mine. No real reason, that’s just the way we’d set it up when our son was born three years ago.
When my daughter died in January, I contacted HMRC a few days after to inform them as we were required to do. As you can imagine, it was a relatively distressing thing to have to do.
To make things easier, HMRC are good enough to have one number you can call in the event of a child dying, and they will then contact all the other departments for you so that you don’t have to make multiple phone calls.
Only when I finally got through, I was told that as the child tax credit wasn’t paid in my name I couldn’t notify them of my daughter’s death. This was despite the fact that my name is all over the account and I am her father.
Instead I then had to go and get my wife, who had discovered our daughter in the cot just a few days before, to call them and report it.
Extremely distressing and unnecessary.
That’s incredibly insensitive, Robert. How awful for you and your wife. Sometimes common sense and empathy just seem to be completely absent.
Thank you Robert. Sorry to you and your wife for your loss.
I read all of the above in absolute horror and my feelings go to all of you caught in a faceless, bureaucratic machine.
Other than the Norfolk example, there is just a lack of basic humanity here – there is always a process that by nature is dry and formal but that surely does not mean that those managing the procedures need to be so absolutely devoid of basic human skills.
Shame on them – just so unnecessary