Father wont make a Will

ceeforcat

Just a warning - the rules for intestacy are different in Scotland and different again in N.I. - rules decribed above apply in England and wales only.

Mojisola

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

I'm not sure if the 200K of house that she gets automatically because of joint ownership, counts towards mum's 250K absolute payment.

The alternative being that she can claim the house AND the first 250K of the investments.

If they are "joint tenants" then they both own the whole house. If your father dies first then your mum carries on owning the whole house and inherits 250k outright from his savings. The rest of the savings are distributed as dzug1 explained.

System

A suggested way of persuading a parent to talk about this is to express your concern about how he would like you to take responsibility for looking after your mother when he dies and she perhaps becomes ill and needs care. Would he want you to have access to his money in order to care for his widow, or would he be happy seeing some of it pass elsewhere?

If his thoughts are primarily for the wellbeing of your mother then he ought to be thinking about that, and what he would want your role to be.

googler

ceeforcat wrote: »

Just a warning - the rules for intestacy are different in Scotland and different again in N.I. - rules decribed above apply in England and wales only.

Well, the OP (based in hull = basedinhull) appears to be in England, but no guarantee that the parents are.

It's the domicile of the parents that will determine which rules apply.

margaretclare

Don't assume that the house is in joint names. With older people, in their 80s you said, it was also pretty common for the house to be in the husband's name only.

I've heard this before, people of that age-group who won't make a will. It's a bit superstitious, if they make a will it's 'tempting providence' or so they think. You'd think by then they'd be hearing 'Time's winged chariot hurrying near' as the poet put it.

We've just re-done our wills and are off to the solicitor's this morning to sign them in front of witnesses. We did power of attorney for each other a few years ago now, just before it all changed.

Mojisola

basedinhull wrote: »

My parents are both in their 80's and my father wont make a will. They both have long term health issues.

I am continuing to try and convince my father to make a will and will probably also have to get some legal advice, especially as there is 1 'black sheep' brother who he does not want including.

He has to decide between not making a will or allowing the black sheep to inherit - which is most important to him?

Clifford_Pope wrote: »

A suggested way of persuading a parent to talk about this is to express your concern about how he would like you to take responsibility for looking after your mother when he dies and she perhaps becomes ill and needs care. Would he want you to have access to his money in order to care for his widow, or would he be happy seeing some of it pass elsewhere?

If his thoughts are primarily for the wellbeing of your mother then he ought to be thinking about that, and what he would want your role to be.

This is a good idea. If you can move the emphasis to your mother and her welfare, maybe he will see things in a different light.

Has your mother made a will?

margaretclare

He has to decide between not making a will or allowing the black sheep to inherit - which is most important to him?

This is one of the reasons why we're updating our wills at this time, last done in 2003. There's one family member who we just don't hear from. I have no idea why, don't know what we've done to him - nothing that I can think of - but he just doesn't want to know us. Fine. It's his choice.

molerat

I had a childless uncle who refused to make a will as he always said "they can fight over it". True enough. Quite amusing seeing his brothers and late wife's sisters, who thought they had a right to some, all scrabbling like children although all in their 70's and 80's. The only ones laughing apart from us on the outside were the solicitors