Confusing inheritance

wife25

I have spoken to the probate office and I am going tomorrow. Then what ?

Gigglepig

Check whether there was anything to inherit in the first place, and decide how to best proceed based on that?

If the properties were owned by husband and wife as "joint tenants" they would have automatically passed to the wife when he died.

If not, they would be part of the estate. And since there was no will you look at the rules posted above. (And double check which rules were in place 20 years ago when he died).

If the rules were the same 20 years ago, perhaps there was nothing for the children to inherit - the properties were probably worth a lot less and the wife would get chattels + first 250k

NAR

Gigglepig wrote: »

the properties were probably worth a lot less and the wife would get chattels + first 250k

Think this is the important bit wife25. It is the value of the property in 1992 that is relevant, not that they were sold for £500k recently. In all likelihood probate will show the properties to be far less than £125k in value at time of death. In which case your OH will have no claim.

londonsurrey

NAR wrote: »

Think this is the important bit wife25. It is the value of the property in 1992 that is relevant, not that they were sold for £500k recently. In all likelihood probate will show the properties to be far less than £250k in value at time of death. In which case your OH will have no claim.

If the 1992 house values are the ones being used, the critical £250k figure is probably lower as well, as the threshold would very likely be far lower than that in 1992.

daska

The only info on the official site refers to that 2009 cutoff.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/probate/why-make-a-will
http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/courts/probate/probate-guide.pdf

but it does state

3. If any of the following situations apply, or if you are in any doubt, you should consider seeking legal advice before distributing the estate of a person who has died without leaving a will:
The deceased died before 4 th April 1988
Anyone entitled to a share of the estate is under 18
Someone died before the deceased and the share he or she would have had goes to his or her children instead (see note 2 for details)
The spouse/civil partner dies within 28 days of the deceased

carolan78

Gigglepig wrote: »

If not, they would be part of the estate. And since there was no will you look at the rules posted above. (And double check which rules were in place 20 years ago when he died).

If the rules were the same 20 years ago, perhaps there was nothing for the children to inherit - the properties were probably worth a lot less and the wife would get chattels + first 250k

This is what I was going to suggest, I'd google and see if you can find a rough idea of what the properties will have been worth 20 years ago if they were worth less than £125k for the two (which is possible) they'd be nothing to look into really.

vegasvisitor

Have you tried contacting the half sibling to see if he intends to 'put things right'?

From experience though, money can make people rather greedy I'm afraid, so it's likely that if they haven't stated their exact intentions at a very early stage then they're not likely to have many intentions. Hope it does work out though - seems really unfair.

Ziggazee

It's not unfair at all......the father clearly died and everything passed to his wife. The properties are highly likely to have been held as joint tenants and would therefore have automatically passed to the wife. The remainder of the estate (if anything) would have passed to her under the intestacy rules.

The OP's husband is too late to claim anything. It's amazing how the worms come out of the woodwork where money is concerned isn't it......the word "greed" springs to mind.

vegasvisitor

I thought the OP was suggesting that the properties belonged to their father originally and were passed to the wife.

If they two people in question had died in the opposite order then things would have happened very differently, hence me thinking it seems unfair.

I don't think it's greedy, it sounds like they've completely missed out on a large inheritance from their father. I recognise the law will not be on their side, but it certainly doesn't seem very fair.

Pollycat

lesley74 wrote: »

I thought the OP was suggesting that the properties belonged to their father originally and were passed to the wife.

If they two people in question had died in the opposite order then things would have happened very differently, hence me thinking it seems unfair.

I don't think it's greedy, it sounds like they've completely missed out on a large inheritance from their father. I recognise the law will not be on their side, but it certainly doesn't seem very fair.

Life often isn't.

Musing about what would (or might) have have happened if things had happened a different way has no relevance on what did happen.

If the wife had died first, the husband (i.e. the OP's husband's Dad) might have got remarried, left everythihng to his new wife, then died and the OP's husband wouldn't be any better off than he is now.

But that hypothetical siutation is totally irrelevant too.