Inheritance Tax, yes you will pay this and the percentage depends on whether there is a Will or not, no will less tax, with a Will, take out a mortgage, yes I have got that the right way round.
Family home is deemed so, if the owners are residents, by making a Will and insisting that it is adhered to, then it will cost you, maybe at todays costing £5-10k, let the state divide it up, then it will still cost; as foreigners the certificates will still need to be apostile and court cost plus judge fees and own country lawyer fees. it all racks up.
Lucky for us we no longer have this dilema. So I will tell you what we had in place, yes it was not the right way to do it, so what, it saved heart ache, and we are all willing to give POA to complete strangers Agents, builders, lawyers etc and to all you do gooders who say, how awful and what a terrible person I am, you can go to hell!
We both had POA (Power of Attorney) giving each the right to buy or sell in the others absence, neither of us had any intention of waving a death certificate.
I hope if our friend is reading this will forgive me, Our friend did not own property she rented, Our friend had a daughter, they both decided to pool their money and put it in Finans bank for the higher interest, unfortunately her daughter became ill and returned to UK for treatment, (yes another story about tourist health in the UK, another thread maybe). The manageress at Finans would often ask our friend how the daughter was, very friendly how helpful such caring people blah blah blah. Unfortunately, the daughter only in her early 30's died; our friend went to the bank to withdraw some money, the manageress asked again, how was the daughter, our friend told her the news, the manageress gave lots of sympathy and I am so sorry to hear this. Our friend went to the counter to withdraw money, in the mean time the the very sympathetic manageress was upstairs freezing the bank account.
