Charities chasing legacies

dzug1

Charities are virtually obliged to chase and maximise legacies - for fear of being held to account if they don't.

OK it looks as though they've boobed here but that's hardly a heinous crime

Moosie94

You don't need to send copies of the accounts if the charities are legatees, only if they are beneficiaries but a copy of the will is useful.
Most of the big charities check all wills once probate is granted to see if they are mentioned. They will soon contact the executors if they hear nothing.

madbadrob

Moosie94 wrote: »

You don't need to send copies of the accounts if the charities are legatees, only if they are beneficiaries but a copy of the will is useful.
Most of the big charities check all wills once probate is granted to see if they are mentioned. They will soon contact the executors if they hear nothing.

A legatee is a beneficiary. Its just another word for the same thing

legatee n. a person or organization receiving a gift of an object or money under the terms of the will of a person who has died. Although technically a legatee does not receive real property (a divisee), "legatee" is often used to designate a person who takes anything pursuant (according) to the terms of a will. The best generic term is beneficiary, which avoids the old-fashioned distinctions between legatees taking legacies (personal property) and devisees taking devises (real property), terms which date from the middle ages

Rob

MrsMouth

Most charities subscribe to a service which notifies them of any bequests that are left to them in a Will when it goes through probate. That's how they know to start writing to you straight away, and yes they do all do it.

You must pay interest on legacies after a year so deal with them as soon as possible. Charities will chase until they have collected, so best to get it out of the way as soon as the estate is in funds.

Alpha58

spacey2012 wrote: »

Only a minority of charities IMO are genuine.
The vast majority of others are set up to serve the huge salaries and wages and perks of the "team".
They pay pie in the sky salaries and expenses, free cars, free homes, free bills and hardly anybody can mention one thing they have done for anyone other than live a good lifestyle off the rich earnings.

Wow!

Tell you what - don't hold back in the next post, just make a sweeping generalisation!

ValHaller

Alpha58 wrote: »

Wow!

Tell you what - don't hold back in the next post, just make a sweeping generalisation!

Spacey expressed something which needs expressing. It is far from universally true, but we have seen with the banks and big corporations how they are run for the benefit of top management at the expense of the shareholders.

Similarly we are seeing charities outsourcing street collection to chugging organisations - so that chugging is an operation making profit for private companies. Similarly, MrsMouth has reported that there are probate monitoring operations, reporting bequests to charities. No doubt they will be taking a %age cut and managing the collection of funds one day soon, if they are not already.

It was probably confusion between an actual charity and a will scavenging company which led to OP receiving a demand for payment of a bequest which had already been paid.

Mojisola

Chris768 wrote: »

The payment was definitely made to the charity and I've got evidence for the payment. I paid the bequests shortly after moving house and I had a great deal on my mind at the time.

I didn't make it clear at time of the payments that they were for a bequest; which is the root cause as to what has happened.

ValHaller wrote: »

It was probably confusion between an actual charity and a will scavenging company which led to OP receiving a demand for payment of a bequest which had already been paid.

I don't think there was any confusion - Chris gave the money but didn't specify that it was a bequest so the charity didn't know that they had received it.

nom_de_plume

I recently sent off an interim payment to Marie Curie and have just received a reply acknowledging receipt and telling me how much more they were due as they had already identified that they were left money. At least they hadn't started chasing me for it yet.

madbadrob

nom_de_plume wrote: »

I recently sent off an interim payment to Marie Curie and have just received a reply acknowledging receipt and telling me how much more they were due as they had already identified that they were left money. At least they hadn't started chasing me for it yet.

Thats downright cheeky. They dont know what debts are in an estate and they have no idea how those debts impact on their legacy. It is no wonder people are now refusing to give to charity through wills if this is the way they act.

They should be greatful for every pound they get and not telling an executor what they are to get

Rob

nom_de_plume

They are going to be disappointed as there's not enough for a full payment. See my thread on abatement...
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4800628