Charity threatens to contest will

warehouse

The overwhelming message in this thread appears to be "NEVER include charities in your will".

Good luck with it O.P. and thanks for the warning.

DVardysShadow

GracieP wrote: »

...
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.

The real task is making that stand up as the question. If that is the question, then meritaten is further forward but not home and dry. But it requires a coherent narrative to establish that as the question.

There is a whole acre of questions on rights to gain the freehold and on the possibility that the sale of the leasehold and the freehold were relatively proportioned by the executor to the advantage of the sisters and to the disadvantage of the charity.

jackieglasgow

The charity's share of the second transaction (the sale of the freehold?) should be either 1/16th or 1/4 as the grandmother predeceased her daughter, so she (A) then inherited a 1/4 of the value of that estate, separate to the house she was gifted. Surely the question is over whether this 1/4 makes up the daughter's residual estate? Actually now that I come to think of it, it means that it does; so if the grandmother's bequest was sold for eg £20,000 the charity should receive £5000 of it, ie 1/4. As the will of the daughter (A) only states that her sisters should receive inheritance from her of 1/4 each of the property sale value, and the property was sold in two lots, one of which was owned by the daughter's estate and one by the grandmother's?

Lordy, I have confused myself now :rotfl:

Lil_Me_2

jackieglasgow wrote: »

The charity's share of the second transaction (the sale of the freehold?) should be either 1/16th or 1/4 as the grandmother predeceased her daughter, so she (A) then inherited a 1/4 of the value of that estate, separate to the house she was gifted.

The freehold wasn't left to daughter A though, it seems that the (grand)mother decided that daughter A would benefit from living in the house, and the other 3 daughters would get the financial benefit upon the death of daughter A.

jackieglasgow

meritaten wrote: »

Her sister died early last year and in her will left instructions that the house be sold and the proceeds divided between her three sisters and a certain charity. the charity were also to recieve the residual

I turned out that as the house was about to be sold the solictitors discovered that the lease (freehold) was actually still in the name of my grandmother, the original owner of the house and whose will specified that the house go to the three sisters with my aunt (the deceased having a life interest - when gran had alzhiemers my aunt took her to the solicitors and got her to deed of gift the house to HER). the sale fell through and the house went up for auction (twice!) as leasehold. This sale is the aunt's estate

the house eventually sold and and I signed over the lease this is the grandmother's estateto the new owners.
The problem now is this last november when the solicitors informed everyone of the accounts of the estate (not huge - the house sold for less than 70k) the charity consulted thier solicitors

because the house was sold leasehold they now have about 5k from that this is the sister's estate

and with the sale of the jewellery 17k have almost 22k

the sisters have 20k each from the sale of the house and this is before solicitors costs (did I mention that the solicitors were executors?).

they are not at all happy with this! they say the house should have been sold freehold From what I can tell this is the sticking point, in my layman's opinion, they should have received 1/4 of the value of the bricks and mortar and 1/4 of the value of the sale of the leasehold, as the grandmother predeceased the aunt, and therefore the aunt's 25% of the sale of the leasehold to the new owners should be gifted in full to the charity as it forms either part of her residual estate or part of the house value, either of which they are legally entitled to. As annoying as it is, your aunt wanted them to have a 1/4 of her estate, which is in essence her inheritance from her mother, with which she can do as she wishes. I don't see how your mother and aunts can refuse legally. I am more than happy to be wrong though.


and that the sisters should agree to them having a quarter of the total value of the house.
this would mean that
the sisters would get around 16k each
the charity would get nearer 30k
the charity is now threatening to contest the will! the sisters are unanimous that they are not giving the charity more - the will was upheld legally by the executors and they feel the charity has had a very generous bequest.

I suppose the lesson to be learned for anyone wishing to bequeath money to charity is to make it a fixed sum, rather than a %age of an estate which they can dispute with your loved ones.

daska

Could the Charity argue that once the Leaseholder has purchased the Freehold the Lease is no longer extant? Or that gifting the house implicitly includes gifting the freehold?

onlyroz

Shouldn't the key objective be to uphold what the dead aunt wanted? I.e. she seemed to want the charity to get 1/4 of her estate. The key question, then, is what exactly is her estate? Is it the whole house (including freehold) or is it just some part of it? I'm still not sure.

daska

Perhaps a conversation with a professional might be a useful place to begin.

Grandmother's GP may be able to confirm whether the dementia had progressed to the point that she could have been taken advantage of and therefore whether it would be possible to investigate overturning the deed of gift.

The Leasehold Advisory Service (020 7383 9800 Mon - Fri 9:00-5:00) may be able to clarify if/how the purchase of the Freehold by the Leaseholder affected the Lease and therefore whether it would be reasonable to expect the house to have been sold as Freehold.

puddy

but surely the aunt left something to a charity that she didnt actually own, so i cant see how the charity would win this. she thought she owned a house freehold, but she didnt, she owned it leasehold, not that i understand these things

daska

Could the fact that grandmother didn't distinguish between lease and freehold or remember that they were separate indicate that she was no longer capable of making such decisions.

Alternatively, could grandmother have retained a few more marbles and thought that if she only gifted the Lease the ultimate result would be unchanged but the daughter would shut up and leave her alone?