19th Century Wills.

[Stephen49.]

I have found several Wills from the 19th Century that states the value being left by the deceased is, for example "under £2000".
Can anyone help me with understanding this. Why does it say 'under' ?
If the value is say £1,500, then why not say £1,500.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Stephen49

 

[Bryman]

I have found several Wills from the 19th Century that states the value being left by the deceased is, for example "under £2000".
Can anyone help me with understanding this. Why does it say 'under' ?
If the value is say £1,500, then why not say £1,500.
Thank you in advance for your help.
Stephen49

I have also seen statements like that and assumed that different actions need to be taken if an estate is valued at more than a certain value. For instance, on some occasions there has been a later record altering the stated value of an estate and perhaps that is unnecessary for those instances where the value is under a certain threshold. These cut-off values do seem to increase over time so it probably is just a matter of trying to simplify the administration in those cases where an exact valuation is not significant.

 

[Tim]

I believe it's to do with death duties/inheritance tax. You might find this article interesting.

 

[Stephen49.]

Thank you very much Bryman and Tim for your feedback, which was interesting and helpful. Now I can appreciate that we might never know the exact value of an estate but pretty close.