Inheritance

TheDancingQueen

Hello everyone,

I'm not sure if this is the right board or not but hopefully someone can help with advice on a problem i have. My father passed away recently, quite suddenly and it's taken a toll on the family as a whole. My mother unfortunately passed away 10 or so years ago. My father never remarried or had a new partner.

A few years ago, my father gave my sister a large sum of cash to "hold" for him as he was worried his pension credits would stop if they knew how much money he had. I told him this was wrong at the time and that he should declare everything and that pension probably wouldn't be affected?

Anyway, this was all out in the open and my sister said that if anything were to happen to my father, she wasn't intending on keeping the money for herself.

After dad passed away, i asked for her to split the money and she text asking for my bank details. No money arrived in my account. A couple of weeks laster, i got a letter from her solicitor to say that the money was a gift from my father and wasn't due to be split as part of the estate.

What are my options here?
1) Can i use the text i received from her that the money would be split as proof that the money wasn't given as a gift?
2) If i were to take legal action, would i be liable for any costs even if i did win?
3) How would i prove this money was fraudulently obtained considering my father made the transfer? I don't think my sister was acting on his behalf in terms of signing anything but i think she was advising him what to do.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
DQ

Loughton_Monkey

This is more a legal matter than 'savings'.

My first instinct, sadly, is that this is a family dispute, with little documentation, and unlikely to be resolved through the courts without strong evidence.

You do not provide any information about the rest of the estate (if any). Who is/are the executor(s)? If you were to be the executor, and there is an equal (or more) estate, I would be rapidly adding the 'gift' to the estate, dividing it by two, and then deducting the 'gift'. This would then put the onus on your sister to 'take it through the courts'. But if that 'gift' represents the bulk of the estate, then that's not really possible.

Depending upon the amount involved, it might be advisable to pop down to a local solicitor for a consultation. (S)he can advise on best action and costs.

TheDancingQueen

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

This is more a legal matter than 'savings'.

My first instinct, sadly, is that this is a family dispute, with little documentation, and unlikely to be resolved through the courts without strong evidence.

You do not provide any information about the rest of the estate (if any). Who is/are the executor(s)? If you were to be the executor, and there is an equal (or more) estate, I would be rapidly adding the 'gift' to the estate, dividing it by two, and then deducting the 'gift'. This would then put the onus on your sister to 'take it through the courts'. But if that 'gift' represents the bulk of the estate, then that's not really possible.

Depending upon the amount involved, it might be advisable to pop down to a local solicitor for a consultation. (S)he can advise on best action and costs.

My Fathers solicitors are the executors. I've queried this with them and they've also received a letter from my sisters solicitor to say it was a gift. The amount is £61K. My fathers solicitors have also replied to say they have no reason to think otherwise or proof to say otherwise(that it wasn't a gift) so accept that. The estate is split equally between us but there is no mention of this money in the will.

However i know this was not a gift and was being held because my father worried his savings would count towards his pension credits.

What kind of proof would i need?

Thankyou for your reply.

Kohoutek

It's certainly possible (and quite common) to challenge the distribution of a deceased person's estate or gifts that were given close to their death. However, if you want to seriously consider bringing a claim, you would need to see a solicitor that has experience of this area, it's called "contentious probate".

1. If you have a text message from your sister that suggests that the money was intended to be held for safekeeping, not as a gift, that would be admissible in court as evidence.

2. It depends. In the English courts, if you lose you may be liable for the winning party's costs as well as you own. Obviously that would work in your favour if you think you have a very strong case. However, people vary rarely recover 100% of their costs.

3. Sometimes in these kinds of cases it will simply be one person's word against another's. Your solicitor would obviously argue it is quite unusual for a elderly parent without explanation to make a gift of a large sum of money to one child and not to another. If you started legal proceedings, your solicitor would request all the relevant parties to disclose any relevant documents they had in their possession. There is a legal obligation to comply with this – even if they harm their own case.

Kohoutek

You also have to be mindful that what your father and sister were doing was very likely to be illegal and if you brought some kind of legal claim against your sister, that would be revealed.

I'm not sure if HMRC or DWF have any power to clawback benefits from a deceased person's estate if they can prove benefit fraud, but it is a possibility.

What your sister was doing is probably a criminal offence like "conspiracy to defraud". Perhaps a quick way of resolving this problem might be to remind her of that...

TheDancingQueen

Kohoutek wrote: »

It's certainly possible (and quite common) to challenge the distribution of a deceased person's estate or gifts that were given close to their death. However, if you want to seriously consider bringing a claim, you would need to see a solicitor that has experience of this area, it's called "contentious probate".

1. If you have a text message from your sister that suggests that the money was intended to be held for safekeeping, not as a gift, that would be admissible in court as evidence.

2. It depends. In the English courts, if you lose you may be liable for the winning party's costs as well as you own. Obviously that would work in your favour if you think you have a very strong case. However, people vary rarely recover 100% of their costs.

3. Sometimes in these kinds of cases it will simply be one person's word against another's. Your solicitor would obviously argue it is quite unusual for a elderly parent without explanation to make a gift of a large sum of money to one child and not to another. If you started legal proceedings, your solicitor would request all the relevant parties to disclose any relevant documents they had in their possession. There is a legal obligation to comply with this – even if they harm their own case.

Thanks for your reply

The text message i have from her just states that she intended to split the money with me but makes no mention of it being a gift or a loan or my fathers money. It simply read "I said i'd split the money and i intend to do that" when i asked what she was doing with the money in her account.

If i took her to court, would she be liable to pay the costs if i won? Would i be liable to pay the costs if i lost as well as her costs?

How can i prove she obtained this money fraudulently?

TheDancingQueen

Kohoutek wrote: »

You also have to be mindful that what your father and sister were doing was very likely to be illegal and if you brought some kind of legal claim against your sister, that would be revealed.

I'm not sure if HMRC or DWF have any power to clawback benefits from a deceased person's estate if they can prove benefit fraud, but it is a possibility.

What your sister was doing is probably a criminal offence like "conspiracy to defraud". Perhaps a quick way of resolving this problem might be to remind her of that...

Is it possible to prove that if she wasn't acting on my fathers behalf in signing any documents etc? My father did everything himself but i know that she knew what he was doing.

wotsthat

Kohoutek wrote: »

What your sister was doing is probably a criminal offence like "conspiracy to defraud". Perhaps a quick way of resolving this problem might be to remind her of that...

The problem will be, of course, that the sister has legal representation stating that the sum of money was a gift to her.

DWP might be interested as by making the gift the OP's father deliberately impoverished himself with the sole intention of defrauding the benefits office. The downside is that any claim will be paid by the estate and not the sister.

If this were me I'd...
- take some legal advice but try not to spend too much money on it.
- forcefully remind the executors that they have a legal obligation and that letters from solicitors are opinion and not legal fact
- make sure my sister thought I was contacting the DWP fraud department and investigating legal action against her and the executors.

I wouldn't hold out much hope though.

Kohoutek

TheDancingQueen wrote: »

The text message i have from her just states that she intended to split the money with me but makes no mention of it being a gift or a loan or my fathers money. It simply read "I said i'd split the money and i intend to do that" when i asked what she was doing with the money in her account.

If you took your sister to court, you would both provide witness statements giving your sides of the story. Your sister would have to provide a credible explanation of what "splitting the money" referred to if she wanted to argue that it didn't refer to your father's money.

TheDancingQueen wrote: »

If i took her to court, would she be liable to pay the costs if i won? Would i be liable to pay the costs if i lost as well as her costs?

That's the general rule, although it doesn't always necessarily happen like that, for example if one party in the opinion of the judge behaves unreasonably, they may not recover their costs in full from the other party if they win.

There may be specialist rules for probate cases. You would need to ask a probate solicitor about that.

TheDancingQueen wrote: »

How can i prove she obtained this money fraudulently?

Is it possible to prove that if she wasn't acting on my fathers behalf in signing any documents etc? My father did everything himself but i know that she knew what he was doing.

It's perfectly possible to start a claim based only on your evidence as a witness of what happened. If you could show that your father was in receipt of a benefit that he would not have received if he had kept the £61k to himself, the court would also take it into account when deciding whether this was a genuine gift or not.

The standard of proof in civil cases is quite low (the court has to think there is more than a 50% chance you are right). If your sister can produce no convincing evidence to refute you, then you may a reasonable chance of success.

TheDancingQueen

Thanks for your replies everyone.

My Father did have other money in his account so i don't think he was impoverishing himself. That's why i think it would be hard to prove.

I did mention the threat of legal action and after that is when i received the solicitors letter from my sister. I think it possible being taken as a threat has made her stubborn and not wanting to give in.

The only other line of prrof i think i could have is that the money hasn't been used for anything. So if it was a gift for example, why would it still be sitting in someones account? I think she is claiming that she was going to buy a house but decided to stay with my dad to "look after him".

dealer_wins

Isnt it amazing how money corrupts people, even your own sister.

If my sister tried to pull a stroke like that she'd regret it I tell ya!!!