Charity threatens to contest will

jazabelle

I do think it needs to be exposed. People leave amounts in their will expecting it to do good, but if the family is going to be treated like this, they should know. I think if someone is going to leave something in the will, it should be a fixed amount, to stop any problems. 'I.e. I leave charity x £5000 upon my death.'

Sorry this is still on-going.

barbiedoll

meritaten wrote: »

update

The charity has now dropped their demand of thousands and now have decided they will close the matter if the sisters give them £500 pounds (each) as a 'donation' to the charity!
The sisters immediate reaction is to say 'bu99er off'! they are annoyed to say the least! my own advice to mum is to pay them, wind up the estate and then take revenge by exposing these awful bullying, blackmailing tactics to the media!
What do you all think?

I think that's an excellent idea, maybe one of the newspapers would feature it in their money advice columns? It's certainly helped me, both my mum and my aunt would like to leave something to charity in their wills, I've told them both about what has happened to your family and my mum, in particular, was horrified (she's a home-owner too)

If they insist on a £500 "donation" from each sister, is there any way that you could get the money in very small denominations (5p pieces would be good!) and "donate" it at their head office? Just a thought!

meritaten

barbiedoll wrote: »

I think that's an excellent idea, maybe one of the newspapers would feature it in their money advice columns? It's certainly helped me, both my mum and my aunt would like to leave something to charity in their wills, I've told them both about what has happened to your family and my mum, in particular, was horrified (she's a home-owner too)

If they insist on a £500 "donation" from each sister, is there any way that you could get the money in very small denominations (5p pieces would be good!) and "donate" it at their head office? Just a thought!

LMAO - I like your style!!!! and what a publicity stunt that would make!

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

pinkshoes

meritaten wrote: »

My grandmother had the house bought her by her parents - the ground rent was paid to a mining company. she bought the leasehold and left the house to her three daughter with the fourth daughter having a life interest in thehouse. the house was then given to fourth daughter while gran was suffering from alzhiemers (not here or there now) but fourth daughter thought the house was freehold. she died and the house was put on the market - the sale fell through when it was discovered that the grandmother who had died still had the lease in her name. mum was executor of the will but unable to fulfil that so I took over. the house was on an auction site as leasehold when I took over. it was on the site that the lease was available for purchase. when the house finally sold I signed the lease over to the new owners for a fee. so they now own the house freehold. the fee went into the estate as part of the house sale. but as daughter didnt own the house freehold it was NOT a major part of the charities share. that went to the sisters - exactly as my grandmother intended!

I think the above explains it clearly.

The leasehold belonged to the grandmother, and was only to be divided between the daughters, and nothing to do with the charity, so they are not owed another penny, and should be NAMED AND SHAMED for being such greedy oafs!

(please do name and shame, as I do donate to some British charities, and would be horrified if I was donating to a charity that showed such greed!)

DVardysShadow

meritaten wrote: »

update

The charity has now dropped their demand of thousands and now have decided they will close the matter if the sisters give them £500 pounds (each) as a 'donation' to the charity!
The sisters immediate reaction is to say 'bu99er off'! they are annoyed to say the least! my own advice to mum is to pay them, wind up the estate and then take revenge by exposing these awful bullying, blackmailing tactics to the media!
What do you all think?

Hmm. I would say that they know they are onto a loser and their solicitor is just trying to extract a token to justify their existence.

If you like poker then I would say tell them to bu99er off. If you like a quiet life, you could pay with bad grace ie 'paid in full and final settlement of all claims to avoid the stress of threatened litigation, without conviction that there is any legitimate claim and without sympathy for the charity or its mode of operation' - copy to the Charity Commissioners.

Somewhere between would be to delay and prevaricate and correspond and finally make fulsome agreement and delay and prevaricate over actual payment. You could really make them work for their money - less than NMW would be a good target.

DVardysShadow

pinkshoes wrote: »

... (please do name and shame, as I do donate to some British charities, and would be horrified if I was donating to a charity that showed such greed!)

Naming and shaming is all well and good, but it may jeopardise the settlement.

meritaten

I WILL name and shame! after the estate is wound up! but my plan is to do it through the media as well as on here! but you will hear it first here! mum and her younger sis are in full agreement with this - I havent spoken to middle sis yet, but I know she is outraged at this blackmail!
Its not just THIS charity - our solicitors say that they have had to deal with many outraged beneficiaries.............and this does not seem to be covered by the media at all.
I think people should know about it, giving to charity is a wonderful thing - but it has to be done of a persons free will........not be coerced or blackmailed into it!

Savvy_Sue

DVardysShadow wrote: »

If you like poker then I would say tell them to bu99er off. If you like a quiet life, you could pay with bad grace ie 'paid in full and final settlement of all claims to avoid the stress of threatened litigation, without conviction that there is any legitimate claim and without sympathy for the charity or its mode of operation' - copy to the Charity Commissioners.

Sadly I don't think the CC will be interested: if you look at this Guidance page, this Making a complaint page, this What issues page, and this When we don't page. Also see below.

DVardysShadow wrote: »

Somewhere between would be to delay and prevaricate and correspond and finally make fulsome agreement and delay and prevaricate over actual payment. You could really make them work for their money - less than NMW would be a good target.

That is certainly an option. And a strongly worded letter from your solicitor to the effect that nothing can be paid until the estate is settled, and thanks to their efforts this has now been considerably delayed, so would they please cease and desist from hassling you, might be worthwhile.

Actually, I've had another thought. How much have you had to pay out for legal advice specifically relating to this issue? Is it worth offering them £1000, less those charges? I'm sure your solicitor could give you a figure somewhere in the region of what you think the charity deserves ...

However, I'm going to repeat parts of my previous posts, not to justify the charity's actions but to explain why they might have taken those actions:

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

It's a balance: the charity does have a legal responsibility to pursue bequests.

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

As I said before, the trustees of a charity HAVE to pursue legacies. Whether they always do so wisely, whether the legal battles are cost effective, whether they are 'entitled' to do so in this case, I shall leave to wiser heads (because mine is in a spin from all this!)

But if they are made aware of a legacy, they would be negligent to do nothing about it.

And if you look at the Charity Commission pages I linked to, if someone thought that they were due a significant legacy (which clearly this could have been) but that they had NOT acted to pursue it, then it might very well have been an issue that the CC would have investigated.

aliasojo

meritaten wrote: »

I WILL name and shame!

Glad to hear it. I too support various charities by DD and I'd prefer my money to go to a more charitable charity iyswim.

Darlyd

OMG My Mil is having the same problem with a greedy charity that her aunt left too.

MIL was made executor on Aunt's death, MIL had to look after her cousin (Aunt's Son with mental problems) Allow him to stay in home, downsize if needed (Which she did, sold house moved cousin to a bungalow), Used the trust to support him etc. And upon his death it was made clear all monies (roughly 100k) and the estate would be donated to this charity.

He passed away over a year ago now, And what a buddy nightmare......... MIL offered to buy bungalow for 100k (in this current market) It's worth 130k, they refused and wants MIL to sell it, she had it on the market for months, lots of interest but sadly no buyers, SO Solicitor advised her to take it off the market and to give it to them as is, (she has sweated doing decorating, new carpets, maintains the garden even now it's empty). FINALLY their solicitors have accepted this offer, and it's all going through. GREEDY BAR STU ARDS !!!!!!!!!!! Funny thing is one of their chair men is called Mr Fidder...