Google Analytics

Friday, 1 November 2024

Tips, Ships and Executorships

New Month Old Post: first posted 14th April, 2017.

Waylands Hessle
'Waylands', 93 Ferriby Road, Hessle (now 'Woodlands Lodge')

“Never appoint a bank as executor to a will.” My dad’s advice was born out of sheer frustration.

“You’ll be all right one day son,” his own father had told him in expectation of a life-changing legacy due on the death of an ailing wealthy spinster then living permanently in a hotel in Harrogate. As things turned out she lived another forty years, by which time the legacy was no longer life-changing, having dwindled away in excessive, unnecessary fees.

Edwin Ernest Atkinson
Edwin Ernest
Atkinson (1872-1939)
It was one of those quirks of family history that testators fail to foresee, which result in their money going to unrelated beneficiaries they never knew or had heard of: in this case my father, his sister and the husband of their late cousin. It originated in Edwin Ernest Atkinson, chairman of the Yorkshire Dale Steamship Co., and Atkinson and Prickett Ltd., shipowners and brokers of Hull. 

On leaving school, Edwin had first worked as a clerk for the Aire and Calder Navigation Company at Goole docks, and then as a coal exporter with the shipping company J. H. Wetherall & Co. In 1906 he began in business on his own, joined in 1911 by Thomas William Prickett.

Atkinson & Prickett
Within twenty-five years both were wealthy men with handsome houses on the outskirts of Hull at Hessle. Edwin’s was called ‘Waylands’, at the corner of Woodfield Lane and Ferriby Road. It had eight bedrooms, an oak-panelled dining room, two other large reception rooms, a billiards room, domestic quarters, coal-fired central heating, outbuildings, cultivated gardens, a heated greenhouse and vinery, tennis courts and a croquet lawn. Thomas William Prickett had a similar property nearby,  ‘Northcote’, at 85 Ferriby Road. Among their dirty British coasters with their salt-caked smoke stacks were the SS Yokefleet, SS Swandale, SS Easingwold and MV Coxwold. There were trains of railway wagons bearing the company name.

SS Yokefleet SS Swandale SS Easingwold MV Coxwold
Atkinson and Prickett ships: SS Yokefleet, SS Swandale, SS Easingwold, MV Coxwold

When Edwin died in 1939 at the age of 66, he left a life interest in most of his £27,000 estate to his wife and only surviving daughter. In terms of price inflation, this would be today’s equivalent of £1.5 million and a great deal more in earnings or property price inflation. It was a considerable sum of money. His wife died less than two years later, thus his daughter, Constance Ruby, still in her thirties, assumed a life interest in the whole sum, to live in comfort and luxury for the rest of her life. She was the lady in the hotel at Harrogate.

Note that Edwin only left a life interest to his wife and daughter, rather than the capital sum outright. They therefore received income from investments, and the capital remained intact. It was a throwback to earlier times when women were not expected to manage their own financial affairs. It also kept the money out of the hands of unscrupulous husbands they might later marry.

Beverley North Bar Without
Numbers 8 to 2 North Bar Without, Beverley, with the fifteenth century gate to the right

Constance Ruby never did marry, although she did have a brief engagement at the age of twenty. She later became Clerk to the Archdeacon of York, living in the Precentor’s Court at York Minster. After her father died she moved with her mother to Harrogate. Later in the nineteen-fifties, she moved to Beverley, into a half-timbered eighteenth century house immediately without the North Bar (the fifteenth century gate). She died there in 1983. As she was the last surviving descendant of Edwin Ernest Atkinson, the capital passed in equal shares to the families of his three siblings. 

One sibling was my great-grandfather’s second wife, who he married five years after his first wife had died. There were no further children, but a deeply shared interest in Methodism saw them happily through the next twenty-four years. They, and Edwin’s other siblings, died long before Constance Ruby, so the money passed to their families. One-third of the capital passed through my great-grandfather’s second marriage, through his children who had also died, to my father, his sister, and their late cousin’s husband.

It was not so simple. An unfortunate legal charade had gobbled up much of the inheritance. The solicitor who managed the capital trust had sensibly established, with documentation, the names of the beneficiaries in readiness for when the trust was wound up. But then, at some point during the nineteen-seventies, the National Westminster Bank trustees department persuaded Constance Ruby that her affairs would be better handled by them. They began the costly process of establishing the beneficiaries all over again, but after several years were still not convinced they had identified them all. Everything came to a standstill after Constance Ruby’s death. It took considerable persistence to have the case transferred back to the original solicitors and at last sorted out.

Around this time, bank Executor and Trustee departments were becoming known for their outrageous fees. An article in The Times in 1985 explained how one executor saved nearly £7,000 by handling a simple £100,000 estate himself. Solicitors charged less, but were still expensive. We have no way of knowing what fees were taken out of the Atkinson trust, how well the investments performed, or how much income was paid out over the years, but when my father and his sister at last received their legacies, what would once have been life-changing sums had shrunk away to just over £3,000 each. Their cousin’s husband (i.e. Edwin’s sister’s husband’s granddaughter’s widowed husband) got £6,000. Welcome amounts for sure, but nothing like what my grandfather had predicted. £3,000 might then have bought a small car. The total value distributed to all beneficiaries was around £37,000. Had the capital kept pace with retail price inflation it would have been ten times that amount (fifty times today). 

In later years, when my father made his will, true to his principles he appointed me as executor. After he died I handled everything myself. It was fairly straightforward. In another case, I was able to manage sums in trust for children until they reached the age of eighteen. More recently, I handled all the paperwork for the estate of another family member. Despite being complicated by inheritance tax (inevitable for owners of houses in the Home Counties) it was still trouble-free. Estate administration can be a long-drawn-out and time-consuming process that tests your patience and endurance, but if you have the time to cut out the banks and solicitors and do things yourself you can save an awful lot in professional fees; sometimes tens of thousands of pounds. You can bring things to completion much more quickly too.  

Further information:  Patrick Collinson (2013). Probate: avoid a final rip-off when sorting out your loved one’s estate. The Guardian, Sep 21, 2013. Maggie Drummond (1985). Finding a will and a way to cut costs. The Times (London, England), Feb 16, 1985; page 16. 

19 comments:

  1. How sad. Your relative would have been spinning in his grave! We have a box beneath our bed with our will. Our assets are listed in a little note book, and two outstanding debts which are paid to us on a monthly basis are kept track of. If we kick off, my son is the executor of our wills. He knows where to find the key to the lock box. It should be pretty straight forward. We don't see the need to involve anyone outside our family in this other than the lawyer we used to put the will together in such a way that it can't be contested.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That sounds very sensible. I'm sure Ernest Atkinson would have wanted his wealth to go to blood relatives at least. We got a share only through marriage, but you still hear of this happening.

      Delete
  2. The fee for dealing with my mother's simple estate was outrageous and took 15 months. I administered my partner's estate and within three months, I had it pretty well sorted. The bank we use was very helpful, without any charge.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It becomes more complicated when there are diverse assets, a house and possessions to sell, and inheritance tax to pay, but by working through it step by step and seeking advice where needed, I didn't find it hard.

      Delete
  3. Clearing up estates can be a lot of work but not necessarily complicated.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. My experience too. It helps not to rush and think you have to do it all at once.

      Delete
  4. Entering the world of wills, inheritance, solicitors and banks is like entering the Minotaur's labyrinth. Of course I am very familiar with the scene at North Bar Without, Beverley - as if seen from "The Rose and Crown" pub.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wonder if Constance Ruby was a regular.

      Delete
    2. Maybe she liked a nice glass of ruby port.

      Delete
  5. So much for making provisions for one‘s descendants and loved ones. Good job nobody will have to deal with complicated trusts etc. when I die - no children, (at the moment) no husband, only a small flat in terms of real estate, and (at the moment) only my Mum and my sister as default beneficiaries.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Under UK rules, it would go back a generation and then down to cousins if you were the last survivor, but German law may be different. Maybe someone will receive an unexpected legacy. The thing with the Atkinson money if that the sum was enormous, and the bank took most of it. Outrageous.

      Delete
  6. I think it all sounds very complicated but there again we complicate matters so that everyone has a bite at the cake. Perhaps if we simplified the matter, like primogeniture, the first born and they sort out who gets what.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We probably should remember that legal matters like this used to be shrouded in mystery, and the professionals liked to keep it so. We were not as well-informed with the benefit of the internet.

      Delete
  7. Well, I am in the process of spending my life savings so there will be nothing left to fight over.

    ReplyDelete
  8. My husband was the executor of my mother's will and sorted it out with no problems, not that she had a vast 'estate.'

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Setting aside the reasons for it being necessary, I found it quite satisfying to master the legalities.

      Delete
  9. I was executor of my late husband's small estate, and did it fine. Even a small estate still has to go through many hoops, which seems unfair. I found I could take a fee for doing the work, though, which seemed fair. I didn't hire anyone to charge me large amounts for what I learned to do myself.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Many hoops, and solicitors insist on writing a letter at every step, and waiting for it to be finished before starting the next, and charge you something like £100 every time. It really is worth doing it yourself when you can.

      Delete

I welcome comments and hope to respond within a day or two, but my condition is making this increasingly difficult. Some days I might not look here at all. Also please note that comments on posts over two weeks old will not appear until they have been moderated.