IHTM09032 - Investigating accounts: building up a picture of the deceased or transferor

When carrying out an investigation you should try to put yourself in the shoes of the deceased and try to build up picture of the deceased’s lifestyle and financial affairs. You should consider, for example,

• what planning for retirement the deceased may have made bearing in mind the person’s occupation and family circumstances?
• if the deceased died young it may be that no planning was entered into so what life policies, death in service benefits or if the person died in an accident, insurance payments, might you expect to find in an account
• did the deceased have substantial investments if so are there any PEPs, TESSAs, ISAs or National Savings investments included in the account – it would be unusual for a serious personal investor not to have investments that are exempt from income tax.
• whether the liabilities are consistent with what you would expect from what you know about the deceased
• what does the information in the will and whatever else you know about the deceased tell you about the possibility of tax planning, including the possibility of lifetime transfers during the deceased’s lifetime?
• did someone have a Power of Attorney over the deceased’s affairs?
• was the deceased in the habit of making substantial family loans or gifts?.

You should use the whole range of information sources ( IHTM09251) available to you to help build up this picture.

Where possible you should try to verify your concerns about possible omissions or inaccuracies in the account. For example, if you expect to find substantial lifetime transfers and there are none or very little has been shown as gifted then you may want check the tax papers or records of the deceased (This text has been withheld because of exemptions in the Freedom of Information Act 2000)