With 61% of bereaved people struggling with death administration (according to the UK Commission on Bereavement), what will the new Government do to help? Are they going to provide more support for the thousands of bereaved families struggling to navigate inheritance tax, an ailing probate system and often a significant loss of income?
For those families who have lost a significant amount of household income because a partner or parent has died, the emotional and financial stress can be enormous. More so for the 46,300 children aged 17 or younger who lose one or both parents. Some families cannot pay for the funeral. Others cannot pay the inheritance, capital gains or income taxes due. Some risk losing their home.
When someone dies, the deceased’s assets, such as financial accounts, are frozen, so relatives struggle to pay for basic living expenses, including telephone or energy bills. Lapses in bill payments can result in financial penalties, including inheritance tax, which is due within six months of the date of death, and interest is applied to any late payment.
Until the inheritance tax is paid, probate cannot begin, and until probate begins money from the deceased’s estate cannot be used. It’s an impossible situation which only adds to and extends a family’s financial and emotional vulnerability.
Probate is supposed to be granted within 16 weeks of applying. In fact, it takes around a year on average, and the number of probate applications that take over a year (or take almost two years) has increased 65% since 2021. In May 2024, to add insult to injury, the standard probate fee increased by 10%. The process, therefore, not only takes you longer, but you also pay more for the privilege.
Bereavement Fund
The Bereavement Fund was designed to relieve some of the financial pressure grieving relatives face by ensuring they can continue paying bills and do not have to leave their homes immediately. Under the Conservative Government, financial support was cut by around 50%, although it was extended to co-habiting partners with a child for the first time. At present, a bereaved child or co-habiting partner receives up to £3,500 upfront and £350 per month for 18 months to help alleviate the initial challenges.
Before the election, the Liberal Democrats proposed restoring the fund to its original levels, doubling it by £44m by 2028-2029 and, critically, extending the entitlement period. It needs to be extended if we are to prevent more people from being financially penalised for being stuck in a process from which it is difficult to escape.
Also, earlier this year, the process of applying to HMRC for a grant on credit was simplified if a payment plan for the inheritance tax bill was agreed upon, in order to end the need for the bereaved to take out commercial loans to pay the inheritance tax before probate was granted.
The emotional stress for the next of kin is enormous and unnecessary. For a civilised nation, there must be a more compassionate and empathic way to help the bereaved during one of life’s most stressful moments. With just a few changes, the new Government could create a system that is significantly more sympathetic to the needs of these grieving families:
- Commit to and provide more resources to decreasing the backlog in probate services – and do not include probate in the significant cuts in unprotected public services widely discussed before the election.
- Support the development of online, automated services which simplify the process of finding and filing all the necessary public and private paperwork for probate.
- Extend the legal Duty of Care of customers for all utilities, banks and retail services suppliers to cover the harm and unnecessary emotional distress caused when processing death notifications. This will help speed up and enforce the creation of more empathic customer services for the bereaved.
- To limit the number of rejected applications, make it compulsory for service or utility providers to create easy-to-use online, automated notification systems that can read 80-90% of electronic documents submitted, such as birth and death certificates. This will not only help accelerate the notification process, but also significantly reduce the stress on loved-ones dealing with an estate.
Bereavement and matters regarding death are not likely to be the highest priority on any new Government’s agenda. That said, elements of bereavement, and the parties’ approach to inheritance tax, in particular, became key battlegrounds. What needs to happen now is for the eyes to be lifted away from a narrow conversation about IHT and political point scoring, to address the much bigger issue that a failing probate system means to everyone who has suffered a loss.
This article was submitted to be published by The Estate Registry as part of their advertising agreement with Today’s Wills and Probate. The views expressed in this article are those of the submitter and not those of Today’s Wills and Probate.
