When someone dies, their estate can include much more than property, cash and investments. Personal belongings and possessions, known as personal chattels, also form part of the estate and need to be dealt with by the personal representatives.
Personal chattels can include items such as jewellery, furniture, artwork, vehicles, antiques and other personal effects. Deciding who should inherit these belongings can sometimes be difficult, particularly where items have significant sentimental value or family members have different expectations as to what ought to go where.
Clear instructions in your Will can help reduce the risk of disagreements and make it easier for your personal representatives to administer your estate.
In this blog, I’ll explain what personal chattels are, what happens to personal belongings after death and how careful Will planning can help avoid disputes.
What are personal chattels?
Personal chattels are physical objects that you can touch and move.
Examples of personal chattels
Personal chattels include:
- Jewellery
- Furniture
- Paintings and artwork
- Books
- Cars and other vehicles
- Household possessions
- Collectables
- Musical instruments
- Personal effects
- Items of sentimental or family significance
HMRC guidance gives examples including clothes, furniture, personal effects and cars as tangible personal property.
What is not usually considered a personal chattel?
Personal chattels do not include cash, investments or items used for mainly or solely for business purposes. It is therefore important not to assume that all your belongings will be considered personal chattels.
Do personal chattels form part of an estate?
Yes, personal chattels form part of a deceased person’s estate and need to be carefully considered when the estate is being administered. It will be for the executors to distribute and deal with the personal chattels in accordance with any provision made in the Will or an accompanying letter of wishes.
Do personal chattels need to be valued?
The value of a person’s personal chattels will be relevant when determining if and how much inheritance needs to be paid on death. Chattels can often have a monetary value as well as a sentimental value, such as jewellery, collections of coins and stamps or cars. It is important that the personal representatives obtain a market value as at the date of death for the personal chattels where inheritance tax is due.
GOV.UK confirms that assets such as household goods and personal items need to be identified when valuing an estate.
Who inherits personal belongings after someone dies?
Who inherits the personal belongings really depends on whether there is a valid Will and what it says.
If there is no Will, then the Intestacy Rules will apply and who inherits will depend on who is entitled to inherit the estate.
What happens to personal chattels if there is a Will?
If there is a Will, the testator might have made specific provision for certain belongings, or for all the belongings to pass to named individuals.
For example ‘I leave my diamond engagement ring to my daughter.’
Alternatively, they might have included provision for the personal chattels to pass to the trustees (usually the personal representatives) for them to distribute in accordance with any wishes that have been made known to them.
The testator might have left a non-binding letter of wishes with their Will setting out who they would like certain belongings to pass to, or they might have left verbal instructions, or even labelled items.
What happens if the Will does not mention personal possessions?
If no provision is made in the Will for the personal chattels, they will form part of the residuary estate.
The personal chattels might be sold and the proceeds distributed between the residuary beneficiaries, or a beneficiary might request a certain personal chattel to keep, with the value of it being deducted from their share of the estate.
What happens to personal belongings if there is no Will?
Where someone has died and has not left a valid Will, the Intestacy Rules determine where the personal chattels pass.
If there is a surviving spouse, they will pass to the surviving spouse in the first instance, but after that it depends on who is next in line to inherit. The Intestacy Rules make provision for children, grandchildren, parents, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews, cousins and eventually the Crown.
There is no provision in the Intestacy Rules for stepchildren and unmarried partners.
Can you leave specific personal belongings to someone in your Will?
Yes, you can use your Will to set out who you would like to receive certain items from your estate. It is important to make sure that clear descriptions of the items are used so that there can be no uncertainty after death about which personal chattel you intended a beneficiary to have.
For example, if you wished to gift a car to a beneficiary but you owned more than one car, it would be important to provide a more precise description of the car’s make, model, colour and registration number to avoid any uncertainty.
Examples of specific gifts
“My Rolex watch to my son.”
“My jewellery to my daughter.”
“My collection of paintings by X to my brother.”
“My classic car registration number X to my nephew.”
What happens if a specific gift in a Will no longer exists?
There are times when assets have been given away in a person’s Will but then they no longer exist at the date of their death. This could be because the personal chattel has been sold, given away, lost or replaced in the testator’s lifetime.
If a gift does not exist at the date of death, then the gift of that item will fail and the intended recipient will not receive it.
Why should you update your Will when valuable possessions change?
If a testator chooses to leave specific items in their Will to certain individuals, not only is it important to be precise in the description but they should also keep the Will under review should any of the items be disposed of in their lifetime.
There is no monetary replacement offered in lieu of a failed gift of a specific chattel.
Of course, testators may come to acquire more personal chattels after they have made a Will, so again, it is important to keep the Will up to date to avoid issues on death.
Can family members take belongings before probate?
When someone dies it is not uncommon for family members to enter the property to take items that are of sentimental or other importance. However, these items should not simply be removed, sold or distributed following a death, without the authority of the executor because provision might have been made for the items in the Will.
It is also important to note that the personal representatives are the only people with the legal authority to take possession and distribute a deceased’s persons assets.
If other individuals choose to remove or take personal chattels, this could cause disputes to arise which can take a long time and a lot of cost to resolve.
The personal representatives have responsibility for the estate and should establish what the Will says before distributing assets. GOV.UK confirms that personal representatives are legally responsible for the deceased's assets during the administration period.
Can personal representatives sell personal chattels?
The personal representatives firstly need to establish what personal chattels there are and what the provisions of the Will or Intestacy Rules say about how they should be distributed.
They will need to arrange an open market valuation for the chattels as at the date of death to establish the value of the items, particularly if inheritance tax needs to be paid.
The personal representatives can then move on to selling or otherwise disposing of the assets but it would be wise for them to wait for the Grant of Representation which confirms their authority, before doing so.
When items are sold in an estate, whether auction or a private sale, it is important to keep a record of the sale in case any of the beneficiaries raise queries later on.
Once the chattels have been sold, the proceeds of sale will pass as per the terms of the Will or Intestacy Rules.
Of course, the beneficiary who has been identified to inherit the personal chattel might choose to receive the physical chattel rather than the proceeds of sale.
How should valuable personal possessions be valued?
For inheritance tax purposes, the executors need to determine the open market date of death value of the personal chattel.
Personal representatives may choose to arrange a valuation by way of a:
- Professional valuation
- Auction house valuation
- Specialist dealer valuation
- Jewellery valuation
- Classic car valuation
- Antiques and artwork specialist valuation
The open market date of death value of a chattel is very different to the sentimental value that an individual might choose to attribute to an item.
What happens to sentimental belongings after death?
As mentioned, not all chattels hold a monetary value but can still be extremely valuable to families nonetheless, due to the memories their invoke or the importance that items holds to a particular family.
Items that don’t necessarily hold a monetary value but would be considered to be sentimentally valuable include:
- Family photographs
- Jewellery
- Letters
- Heirlooms
- Furniture
- Childhood possessions
- Items associated with family history
It is often the distribution of these sentimental items that causes the most upset and risk of dispute. Of course, sorting out such a dispute can be extremely difficult because of the emotions that are often attached to these items.
How can disputes over personal belongings be avoided?
There are steps you can take to prevent disputes over personal belongings.
Make your wishes clear in your Will
The best way to avoid a dispute is to include your instructions as to the distribution of your personal belongings in your Will by clearly setting out who should receive what and then by keeping your Will under review and up to date should there be changes to these instructions or the items themselves during your lifetime.
Consider a letter of wishes
As mentioned, some testators choose to leave a non-binding letter of wishes to sit alongside the Will to give the personal representatives some guidance as to how they would want their belongings to be distributed.
Whilst these letters can be very useful, it is important to note that they are not legally binding. Only set out wishes for your personal representatives to consider rather than binding instructions.
Sometimes, it would be more appropriate to include a direct instruction in the Will as to the distribution of a belonging, particularly if it is likely to become contentious.
Talk to your family about your wishes
Talking to your family in your lifetime can be a really useful way of expressing your wishes, if you don’t choose to leave a letter of wishes. Of course, this may not prevent a dispute arising following your death but it can be a good way of letting family know what your wishes would be.
Keep an inventory of valuable possessions
It can be useful to keep an inventory of any items you consider to be particularly valuable to assist your personal representatives in identifying and safeguarding such items after your death.
Of course, you may be aware of the value an item holds but your personal representatives may not necessarily also have that knowledge.
You may wish to keep an inventory of any:
- Valuable jewellery
- Artwork
- Antiques
- Vehicles
- Collectables
- Family heirlooms
If an inventory is kept, then it is important to make sure that it can be found after death and that it is kept up to date in your lifetime.
Review your Will regularly
Reviewing and keeping your Will updated every 3-5 years, or sooner if your family or financial circumstances change is imperative and can be a useful way of preventing or at least mitigating any disputes that could arise after your death.
Read about when to update your Will here.
What happens when family members disagree over personal belongings?
Unfortunately, disputes do arise after deaths and often these can relate to:
- Disagreements over who should receive an item
- Arguments about the value of possessions
- Claims that someone was promised an item during the deceased's lifetime
- Items being removed from a property without agreement
- Disputes about whether an item was intended as a gift
If a dispute does arise then it is important that parties, potentially also including the personal representatives, take the appropriate independent legal advice.
Taking advice at the earliest opportunity can help to stop a dispute from escalating into a costly estate dispute.
How can Timms Solicitors help with personal chattels and estate administration?
At Timms, we can assist you with the drafting or review of your Will and any associated letters of wishes. We can give you bespoke advice in relation to any personal chattels that you specifically want to gift in your Will, and we can advise you as to the most appropriate way of doing so.
After a death, we can also give assistance to personal representatives as to their duties and responsibilities in relation to personal chattels and we can even assist with the administration of an estate.
Where disputes do arise, it can be helpful to have a professional legal advisor involved and so we can assist in providing the initial advice that may be needed to settle an initial dispute and/or discuss the next steps in relation to obtaining legal advice for a full estate dispute.
If you are making a Will or dealing with an estate and are unsure what should happen to personal belongings, our Wills & Probate team can provide tailored legal advice. Please contact us on freephone 0800 011 6666 or at legal@timms-law.com.
Frequently Asked Questions
What are personal chattels in a Will?
Personal chattels are broadly tangible movable possessions, such as jewellery, furniture, artwork and personal effects, subject to certain legal exclusions.
Who inherits personal belongings when someone dies?
It depends on the deceased’s Will. If there is no valid Will, the Intestacy Rules determine who inherits the estate and personal chattels.
Can I leave a specific item to someone in my Will?
Yes. A Will can make specific gifts of items such as jewellery, artwork, vehicles or family heirlooms.
What happens if I leave an item in my Will but sell it before I die?
If the specified item no longer forms part of the estate when you die, the gift will fail. This is why it is important to review your Will when your circumstances or possessions change.
Can an executor sell personal belongings?
An executor may be able to sell personal belongings, where appropriate, depending on the terms of the Will and the circumstances of the estate. The proceeds may then form part of the estate or may be due directly to a named individual. Again, this depends on the terms of the Will.
Can family members take belongings before probate?
Family members should not assume they can remove or distribute possessions simply because they believe they are entitled to them. The estate should be dealt with by the appropriate personal representatives in accordance with the Will and the law.
How do I stop arguments over personal belongings after my death?
Clear provisions in your Will, discussing important wishes with your family and keeping an up to date inventory of valuable possessions can help reduce the risk of disputes.
Do personal belongings need to be valued for Inheritance Tax?
Yes, any valuable personal chattels will need to be valued when establishing the value of the estate for Inheritance Tax purposes.
