Background:
An elderly friend of mine was long time mates with a bloke of similar vintage who croaked, leaving behind wifey. Over about a decade wifey became increasingly decrepit & befuddled & was eventually moved into a nursing home, funded by the sale of her house & the one next door, which she & hubby had owned. My mate was in charge of her finances (& her really), had POA, ran her affairs, paid the nursing home & other expenses out of her balance. He took no payment or remuneration of any kind for doing this over about a decade, doing it gratis for his dead mate, if you see what I mean. In the end wifey was incapable of doing just about anything & was gaga 95% of the time.
So, wifey dies & my mate is executor. Money left (about £400K as I understand) is divided 7 ways between 6 charities with 1 getting 2/7ths. My mate was left £20K.
As executor he does all the stuff required (for free) & comes to regret it, as it is far more involved & time consuming (2 years) than he had foreseen. Anyhoo, probate eventually is granted & he gets the bumpf back from the court. He looks it over & sees he has made a silly mistake in adding up the accounts & had come up with a figure that is £20K higher than the actual amount of assets she has. It's just an arithmetic error, he added it up incorrectly & did not notice.
He's now worried that because probate has been granted at the higher, incorrect figure he will be on the hook for the extra £20K, the £20K which never existed in the first place as can be verified from all the bank accounts etc.
Is he screwed?
What should he do?
TIA.
An elderly friend of mine was long time mates with a bloke of similar vintage who croaked, leaving behind wifey. Over about a decade wifey became increasingly decrepit & befuddled & was eventually moved into a nursing home, funded by the sale of her house & the one next door, which she & hubby had owned. My mate was in charge of her finances (& her really), had POA, ran her affairs, paid the nursing home & other expenses out of her balance. He took no payment or remuneration of any kind for doing this over about a decade, doing it gratis for his dead mate, if you see what I mean. In the end wifey was incapable of doing just about anything & was gaga 95% of the time.
So, wifey dies & my mate is executor. Money left (about £400K as I understand) is divided 7 ways between 6 charities with 1 getting 2/7ths. My mate was left £20K.
As executor he does all the stuff required (for free) & comes to regret it, as it is far more involved & time consuming (2 years) than he had foreseen. Anyhoo, probate eventually is granted & he gets the bumpf back from the court. He looks it over & sees he has made a silly mistake in adding up the accounts & had come up with a figure that is £20K higher than the actual amount of assets she has. It's just an arithmetic error, he added it up incorrectly & did not notice.
He's now worried that because probate has been granted at the higher, incorrect figure he will be on the hook for the extra £20K, the £20K which never existed in the first place as can be verified from all the bank accounts etc.
Is he screwed?
What should he do?
TIA.
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