Charity threatens to contest will

jackieglasgow

I think GracieP is right, the figures are neither here nor there. The grandmother left the house to her four children, and the "land". One child (A) got grandmother to sign the house over to her, but not the "land" as she didn't know they weren't one in the same. A then died and left the house (and land, she thought) to BC and D and the charity, but it was discovered that she could only will the house as she only owned it outright. So really, the charity should get 1/16th of the value of the "land" (one quarter of the quarter share A inherited from her mother) and 1/4 of the value of the house plus any residual estate from A.

No legal knowledge or experience, but it sounds like the charity are at it, would the probate office not be any (free) help?

Savvy_Sue

If you google 'RSPCA contested will' you'll find it has been done with varying degrees of success. I believe the RNIB are quite hot off the mark with requesting that bequests be paid promptly, suggesting for example that the executors take out a loan if it looks as if it will take time for probate to be finalised.

It's a balance: the charity does have a legal responsibility to pursue bequests. Whether they will back down in response to a strongly worded letter from your own solicitors in this case I can't fathom!

DVardysShadow

jackieglasgow wrote: »

I think GracieP is right, the figures are neither here nor there. The grandmother left the house to her four children, and the "land". One child (A) got grandmother to sign the house over to her, but not the "land" as she didn't know they weren't one in the same. A then died and left the house (and land, she thought) to BC and D and the charity, but it was discovered that she could only will the house as she only owned it outright. So really, the charity should get 1/16th of the value of the "land" (one quarter of the quarter share A inherited from her mother) and 1/4 of the value of the house plus any residual estate from A.

No legal knowledge or experience, but it sounds like the charity are at it, would the probate office not be any (free) help?

Your basis for this is only GracieP's posts - meritaten has not talked about a division of house and land, only the issue of freehold and leasehold. The freehold belongs to a mining company [and its successors], as clarified by meritaten. There was only 1 sale, although the property went to auction twice after a failed sale.

The basis of the calculation is not house and land AFAICS. It hinges on ignoring the deed of gift from grandmother. Without that deed of gift, each sister [including the aunt who died] gets 25% of 65k from grandmother on the death of sister when the lifetime interest from the will expired- ie 16.5k. And the 3 remaining sisters and the charity get 25% of the 16.5k from the estate of the aunt who died - about 4k. This tallies roughly with the figures meritaten has given.

I believe where the talk of freehold comes in is from the charity not being aware of the leasehold issue and using freehold to distinguish from lifetime interest.

The core legal question in this is whether the deceased aunt held the house as a lifetime interest on grandmother's will or in her own name as beneficiary of grandmother's deed of gift. This is an unresolved issue from grandmother's will. The executors of grandmother's will have a duty to include the house in grandmother's estate if they can find a way of overturning the deed of gift. The executors of aunt's estate have a duty to uphold the deed of gift. As these are largely the same people, there is a conflict of interest. The aunt's executors have a duty to the charity to maximise the charity's take by upholding the deed of gift.

All in all a very complex situation, which the charity will win unless the deed of gift is overturned. If the sisters fight it, it will swallow their inheritance in legal fees. They need serious legal advice. The obvious way for them to deal with it is for the sisters to sue the estate of the dead aunt - and for the executors of the dead aunt to put up a poor fight, resulting in a ruling that the deed of gift does not stand. But because of the conflict of interest, the charity could then sue the executors of the dead aunt. Very quickly, there will be no money in the estate apart from enough to pay off the charity.

jackieglasgow

I only used the analagies of house and land because I don't understand the whole freehold and leasehold thing, we don't really do it like that north of the border

From what I could see of meritaten's post, the grandmother's estate has now been finalised too. I am sure she stated that the family of the grandmother had bought the freehold from the mining company?

DVardysShadow

jackieglasgow wrote: »

I only used the analagies of house and land because I don't understand the whole freehold and leasehold thing, we don't really do it like that north of the border

From what I could see of meritaten's post, the grandmother's estate has now been finalised too. I am sure she stated that the family of the grandmother had bought the freehold from the mining company?

House and land would be extremely misleading for leasehold and freehold. Freehold means ownership of house and land. Leasehold means having the exclusive benefit of almost all rights over the house and land for a substantial period [99 years, 125 years, 999 years]

Well spotted on the freehold. Post 7 says it was trnasferred. A trick may have been missed there, in that the freehold could make a substantial difference to the value of the property if the remaining lease were much less than 80 years. This in turn could open the executors to liability for failure to realise the full value of the property.

Another layer of complication, then. The charity does worse if the leasehold is extinguished and the property becomes freehold and the freehold is distributed according to grandmother's will, as long as the deed of gift was limited solely to the leasehold of the house. If meritaten got the freehold while wearing the hat of grandmother's executor, this would be right. Except that meritaten would only have standing to get hold of the freehold as aunt's executor, unless the deed of gift is ruled invalid.

It all hinges on that deed of gift.

Mojisola

The only people who are going to "win" are the solicitors.

DVardysShadow

Mojisola wrote: »

The only people who are going to "win" are the solicitors.

I agree. There are enough issues in this for 5 or more years of legal battles which would drain away an estate 50 times the size.

meritaten's description shows a less than firm grasp of the issues, she is conflicted as executor of 2 estates and what has been done appears to have been done in the wrong order maximising the benefit to the aunts at the expense of the charity. If the sisters fight this, I reckon they will lose all of their inheritance.

That is unless meritaten can show that the deed of gift is not valid and can be absolutely clear about what capacity she was acting in in relation to the freehold and her standing to do so.

GracieP

DVardysShadow wrote: »

It went to auction twice. It is only your assumption that there were 2 sales.

Meritan clearly states, repeatedly, that there were two sales and that the current owners own the property freehold.

NAR

Mojisola wrote: »

The only people who are going to "win" are the solicitors.

This was my reaction too. From my reading of first post the disputed amount is either £8k or £16k. If dispute is protracted then this will disappear very quickly, possibly along with a considerable portion of the amount to be shared.

GracieP

jackieglasgow wrote: »

I am sure she stated that the family of the grandmother had bought the freehold from the mining company?

She did, she just mixed up the terms. She also said she sold the freehold to the new owners in a separate transaction, the proceeds of which only benefited the sisters. It's this transaction which the charity is contesting.

DV is getting bogged down in the deed of gift which is quite irrelevant as the sisters have given the charity the quarter of the proceeds of the property which the deed of gift pertains to. The charity is now looking for a share of the second transaction.

The real question is, can the charity claim money which was willed to them by a person who only thought they owned the thing they willed.