Advice for an executor of a will appreciated

daska

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

So does that mean that they are not descendants at all?

It's way outside my experience too, but I'm struggling to find anything which describes or defines 'remoter descendants'. Not having a legal brain, I'm trying to apply common sense, which I know is a dangerous thing to do ...

What are you thinking of m'dear, common sense has no place in a courtroom or a legal document. :rotfl:

I only came across the term because it was mentioned at some point while I was researching our family history, there are quite a few marriages in our family tree which have resulted in people having direct and indirect (and on one occasion doubly direct) relationships with others. All very confusing. Aunts who are also Aunts but also cousins type of inbreeding - possibly why I'm so strange..:shocked:

londonsurrey

You can be our in-house Cleopatra.

getmore4less

THe solicitor that did the will should clarify the situation for free.

jackyann

getmore4less wrote: »

THe solicitor that did the will should clarify the situation for free.

If it is anything like my parents' wills, not only the solicitor was dead, so was the clerk who was named as one of the executors. The solicitors' office denied he had ever worked there (40 years' service doesn't count for much if it was over 50 years ago!) and we had to track his death certificate down ourselves!

Nenen

Thank you all so much for your help and support... we now have some great ideas to follow up which we wouldn't have thought of without you. I love MSE!

Catti

Nenen,

The situation is actually very straightforward.

The gift was made to 5 beneficiaries, one of whom did not survive. The gift to that beneficiary simply fails. The living and named beneficiaries are legally entitled to the residue of the estate.

s33 Wills Act referred to above relates only to a gift made to YOUR OWN child, grandchild or great grandchild - not to any other person. So a niece or nephew is not covered by that section.

Many wills have a separate clause in it stating that if any named beneficiary dies before the testator, leaving living children, then those later children shall take as substituted beneficiaries. But if that clause is not in the Will, then it is simply the surviving four that inherit and your OH must comply with that position.