bank statements etc while waiting for Probate

endofrainbow

At what point (if at all) could beneficiaries of an estate, request a breakdown of expenses from the deceased's accounts? Executor is also a beneficiary.

Peregrinus

Well, you can ask at any time, but there are no fixed times or deadlines by which the executor/administrator has to comply. In my (limited) experience in probate practice we didn't prepare formal estate accounts until the final wind-up — doing it periodically in the meantime would just run up expenses. We did answer the occasional question about specific expenses, but if they became bothersome and started to run up expenses we would advise the executor to decline them.

If (as the thread title suggests) probate hasn't yet been granted, there's no point asking the executor what expenses have been discharged out of the deceased's accounts; virtually no expenses will have been discharged, because without a grant of probate it would be very difficult for the executor to get more than a little money out of the accounts. You can ask what expenses have been incurred in the administration of the estate, but the answer is like to be be, mainly, the funeral and burial costs.