Punts in a will

einn32

What happens when a will uses Irish punts instead of euros?

tracey turnblad

Would they not just convert the punts to euros?

einn32

tracey turnblad wrote: »

Would they not just convert the punts to euros?

That's what I thought. But I just wondered does it open issues up? Also what's the conversion rate?

LionelNashe

einn32 wrote: »

That's what I thought. But I just wondered does it open issues up? Also what's the conversion rate?

Conversion rate is fixed; 1 Punt = 1.27 Euros.

The Cush

einn32 wrote: »

Also what's the conversion rate?

€1 = IR£0.787564

http://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/money_and_tax/personal_finance/financial_institutions/euro.html

Sleeper12

einn32 wrote:

That's what I thought. But I just wondered does it open issues up? Also what's the conversion rate?

You will always be able to change punts for euro. If you still have any that is. Punts will always have a set exchange rate. I can't see using punts in a will can make any difference. There must be 10s of thousands of wills saying I leave 500 punts to the cat and dogs home or something like that.

einn32

Sleeper12 wrote: »

You will always be able to change punts for euro. If you still have any that is. Punts will always have a set exchange rate. I can't see using punts in a will can make any difference. There must be 10s of thousands of wills saying I leave 500 punts to the cat and dogs home or something like that.

Cheers. I was just wondering.

Victor

LionelNashe wrote: »

Conversion rate is fixed; 1 Punt = 1.27 Euros.

Legally, you are only allowed use the €1 = IR£0.787564 conversion.

4ensic15

If they will says punts and the person dies leaving only euros how does the person get punts. There is no facility for converting euros to punts, only for converting punts to euros.

Sleeper12

4ensic15 wrote: »

If they will says punts and the person dies leaving only euros how does the person get punts. There is no facility for converting euros to punts, only for converting punts to euros.

Your answer is in your question. The punts in the will are automatically converted to Euro. There is no need to convert to punts

Peregrinus

There's no issue here. At the time of the changeover we had legislation which converted all debts, bank deposits, etc to obligations in euros, and it also covered this point. There's a provision somewhere which I can't be bother to track down which says that in any document drawn up before the changeover date which mentions a sum in pounds, in the operation, implementation, enforcement etc of the document after the changeover date the document is to be be treated as if it specified the equivalent sum in euros. Just as your old mortage which was origionally extended to you in pounds is now to be repaid in euros, so your old will which mentions bequests in pounds will be implemented by paying bequests in euros.

4ensic15

That only applies if the document was prepared before the changeover. A lot of old people talk about pounds although they are gone since 1979 and punts which are gone since 1999.

Peregrinus

There was no change of currency in 1979; just a break of the fixed 1:1 exchange rate which had existed up to that point between the Irish pound and the pound sterling. After that date the Irish pound was often called the "punt" in English as a convenient way of clarifying that you were talking about the Irish pound, not the pound sterling, but it wasn't a new currency. The official name of the Irish currency, as set out in the Decimal Currency Act 1969 was "Irish pound" (in English) or "punt Éireannach" (in Irish), and there was no change to that state of affairs in 1979, or indeed at any time up to the introduction of the euro.

But, yes, the transitional legislation that I spoke of will only operate as described on a will drafted before the euro changeover in 1999. However its unlikely that a will drafted after the euro changeover would refer to either pounds or punts. People may use those terms in informal contexts but you don't see them in documents like wills and contracts that were drafted after the changeover.

brian_t

Maybe the will refers to actual punts that are currently stuffed in a matress or under some floorboards.

Peregrinus

brian_t wrote: »

Maybe the will refers to actual punts that are currently stuffed in a matress or under some floorboards.

If that's the case, the will refers to actual banknotes, and it's the actual banknotes that will be given to the beneficiary.

hullaballoo

Is the corollary conversion rate not allowed? £1 = €1.269738?

Victor

hullaballoo wrote: »

Is the corollary conversion rate not allowed? £1 = €1.269738?

No. That said, it would be rare that it would make any real difference. It would affect things like stock market trading, where the dealer could lose a chunk of their commission (which migh be a fraction of 1%) to an incorrect calculation.

Peregrinus

From memory, the Directive which regulated all this at the time specified that conversions (in either direction) did not have to be done to more than six significant figures.

coylemj

Peregrinus wrote: »

From memory, the Directive which regulated all this at the time specified that conversions (in either direction) did not have to be done to more than six significant figures.

They couldn't be done to more than six significant digits for the simple reason that all of the official rates which were set in January 1999 (French Franc, Italian Lira etc.) were published with exactly six significant digits.

Inverting the official rates for a reverse conversion would give you more than six significant digits as per hullabaloo's post (#16) above. Which is why, for consistency, all conversions were required to be done with the official six digit rate only.

So...

Punts to Euros: divide punt number by 0.787564
Euros to Punts: multiply euro number by 0.787564

Carawaystick

the 7th and further digits are 0...