What happens when I die?

As long as platforms don't go down the same path as the greedy corporates that handle shares for large companies. Some try to charge fees that are more than the face value of the shares. This applies whether giving them to charity or cashing them in.

If trustees are handling the run down of a p2p portfolio then who is responsible for ifisa and taxation? Rhetorical question.

A consistent approach by platforms in this situation in terms of actions may help inexperienced trustees get through things without feeling out of their depth. There are some platforms where I would trust the leadership team to do the right thing but others that would, imo, look for an opportunity to make money for platform way above costs.

Be aware that if you, or a member of your family, took out a lasting power of attorney, or its predecessor, and paid full fees, in the last 5 years you are owed a refund.

Contact the office of the public guardian to make a claim. You need the person's name, dob and bank account number in order to claim.

Fees were found to be greater than costs hence the refunds. These include interest at the HMRC rate. No date has been set for claims to end, yet.

I'm dealing with an estate at the moment, although (thankfully) there are no IFISAs included.

Just one observation: on death, all ISAs lose their tax benefits immediately and any underlying investments revert to their taxable equivalents. So good luck calculating the tax position of the income during estate administration...

I guess (please note careful use of this word) that IFISAs are likely to work in the same way as S&S ISAs in that they won't accept an instruction to cash in any investments until probate has been granted - this has been a source of frustration to me as I've had to watch S&S investments going the wrong way while being completely unable to do a thing about it!

On a more general note, having to perform this role has made me a lot more aware of how I might inadvertently make life much harder for my own executors than it need be, and I have to say that if I thought I were in any risk at all of popping my clogs (I don't) then I would get all my money out of P2P as quickly as I possibly could.

It might be interesting or helpful for platforms to come forward with their own thoughts on this question.

Just for fun, I looked at the RS website: in their FAQ it says "We can’t change the name on the Lender’s account or transfer it into another person’s name. We’ll take repayments and the interest earned as usual on behalf of your estate. Once the loan is repaid in full we’ll release the money when the executor of your will instructs us to do so."  It doesn't say if they will accept an instruction to sell.

FC have a helpful statement: support.fundingcircle.com/hc/en-us/articles/214637066-What-happens-in-the-event-of-an-investor-s-death- 

Since I am firmly in "executor" mode, I've done a bit more thinking and looking on this question.

Here are some of the other threads on this topic on this very board:

p2pindependentforum.com/thread/8226/liquidating-assets-after-death-investor

p2pindependentforum.com/thread/6567/online-lending-deal-physical-death

p2pindependentforum.com/thread/3160/planning-inevitable

p2pindependentforum.com/thread/657/death-lender-lates-write-offs

Cashing in the loans shouldn't be too hard, provided that the platform has a mechanism for this (would you invest in a platform that didn't?) and also that there are replacement investors available (the perennial P2P risk). So you follow whatever processes the platform provides - some will be better prepared than others, for sure - and shortly after Grant of Probate you should have most of the money back.

The issue we keep coming back to are the defaults and lates, which can of course lead to a string of tiny payments over many years. For an executor, this could be an absolute nightmare. Can you imagine getting a yearly payment of £1.27 from, say, FC - and then having to split it up as defined by the will between multiple beneficiaries, and completing the required tax notification for each beneficiary for each tax year within which a payment is made?

It could be made a lot easier if the platform allowed a whole account to be assigned to a new person: the account would have to have some value assigned and agreed, but since we're not talking generally about large sums of money this shouldn't be insuperable - no harder than agreeing a value for Granny's ring that Flo really wants...

It's also been suggested that it ought to be possible to assign the proceeds of an account to charity.

However, neither of these options seem to be available, which to me would be a strong negative when considering a P2P investment for anyone who thought it likely they might die within the next 10 years. Any platforms want to put their hands up and say otherwise?

If I made my passwords available to my executor, would it be legal for him to simply run the account down without advising the platform of my death?  Anyone know?

Your experiences of Z, RS and AC don't surprise me. I've found in my dealings with many organisations as executor that it's generally the bigger ones that are really good: they have specialist bereavement departments who know what they are doing and have established processes. Utilities and major banks for example. But the smaller places have been the ones that have caused real trouble, in some cases having no idea of their obligations. I'm not at all surprised that AC haven't yet had enough experience to work this one out.

One of the posts referenced above links to a 2 year old partial survey of P2P platforms to find out what their approaches are. www.p2p-banking.com/uncategorized-in-the-case-of-death/ 

I wonder if anyone would care to join me in drawing up a list of common questions and then approaching platforms for their up to date comments? I suspect they might be more responsive to hear from someone who is actually a lender with them. If a few of us divvied up some platforms then we might get something together.

I suggest taking the divvying up process out of this public space, into PMs, in case anyone is uncomfortable about creating a link between their forum name and their real identity with a platform.

PM me if you are interested in joining in, with a list of the platforms you could tackle.

First pass at the question list:

1 - Is there a process for allowing the return of investments before Grant of Probate? For all accounts, or below a value limit?
2 - Are there any special arrangements to allow for the cashing in of the investments of deceased lenders, or is it just "normal rules apply"?
3 - Is it possible to transfer the account of a deceased lender to someone else, either an executor or any other nominated person?
4 - Is there, or might there be in the future, a facility to transfer the benefit of an account to a charity?
5 - What measures do you take to help an executor find out about the account if they don't already know about it - e.g. postal communication if no electronic interaction for 12 months, say?

It would probably be sensible to scan the platform's FAQ first in case there are some answers already!