Mother died before she got to change her will, what can I do?

christmas_carole

Hi yes, Mam's house was paid off 17 years ago when my Dad died, my sister has no share in it whatsoever.
What went on was i was kept away as Mojisola has sussed out, my sister took a long time to come around to me being back in the family and wouldn't speak o me or even give me eye contact for a long time, she then seemed to thaw and we got quite close, untill the day my Mam died and the distance between us grew again, I have tried so hard to be involved with everything, funeral, flowers, going out for lunch, calling at her house but I havent had much luck, now I know why.....

ELC_2

Hi Christmas Carole,

I'm sorry to hear you're having such a difficult time at the moment. You've said that your mother said, in front of other people, that she wanted her affairs to be divided equally between both you and your sister.

If your mother made a clear and unequivocal promise to leave you an identifiable share of her estate, and you relied on that promise and suffered a detriment relying on that promise, then you may look to bring a claim.

The standard of proof is again on the balance of probabilities and the burden of proving your claim rests with you. If the court is satisfied by your evidence, it may prevent your mother going back on that promise, by transferring a share of the estate to you.

This is called proprietary estoppel, you may want to consider getting formal legal advice on this as soon as possible.

Mojisola

CC - if you want to get some breathing space so that you have time to decide whether to contest the will or not, you can put a caveat on the estate - https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/probate/caveats

As ELC said - are there any independent witnesses to your mother talking about making a new will?

Was there a prior will which left a share to you?

If so, was the new will done independently by your mother or was your sister with her the whole time?

spacey2012

Will challenges when a will unfairly leaves out a similar sibling are quite common and do succeed, unless she has made a token provision and left you 10p or something you can argue that your sister sibling unduly influenced your mother to change her will.
Start by contracting the probate office and requesting a copy of the will.
There is a small fee.
Some solicitors will take good cases on a bounty share arrangement.

Trig3

My mother told me we would be moving to a ground floor flat when she couldn't manage the stairs anymore, the flat would be put in my name & my sister would get half of the cash left over from the sale of the house after we moved, however her will said 50/50 of any property she owned & she died before we could move.

The sister, who had not been part of our lives for a few years crawled back out from under her rock & collected half of the money from the sale of the house, leaving me without enough to buy a flat in the area we were supposed to live, which were my mothers wishes.

Spoken words & legal documents are two very different things, the legal document trumps the words every time, no matter how unfair it is.

Witnesses won't count, my mother talked of her plans in front of my uncle, or did she? who knows if we don't have a deal & I'm going to pay him to say that?

christmas_carole

Mojisola wrote: »

CC - if you want to get some breathing space so that you have time to decide whether to contest the will or not, you can put a caveat on the estate - https://www.justice.gov.uk/courts/probate/caveats

As ELC said - are there any independent witnesses to your mother talking about making a new will?

Was there a prior will which left a share to you?

If so, was the new will done independently by your mother or was your sister with her the whole time?

Probate was granted two weeks ago.

whitewing

I don't know if your dad's will would give an indication that at one point they were expecting inheritance to go to you both. It may be worth taking that along with you if you see anyone. (I guess it probably won't but it's easier to rule it out of you know what it says).

rpc

ELC wrote: »

This is called proprietary estoppel, you may want to consider getting formal legal advice on this as soon as possible.

Estoppel is a shield, not a sword (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combe_v_Combe)

In any case, it would be the deceased who was estopped and not the sister.

ELC_2

rpc wrote: »

Estoppel is a shield, not a sword ([link removed])

In any case, it would be the deceased who was estopped and not the sister.

Hi RPC, if I may clarify?
A successful argument of proprietary estoppel (deceased made promises, relied upon by promissee to their detriment) would essentially mean the deceased held a share of their estate on trust for the promissee.

Practically the argument means a share of the estate was held for the person who was made a promise, and could not therefore be disposed of by the deceased's under their will or otherwise.

It's an equitable concept imposed by the court to prevent an inequitable outcome. For example: the farmer promises his son 'one day this will all be yours' and farmer's son works on the farm for 30 years without pay, in expectation the farm will be his one day. If farmer doesn't leave what was promised to the son, when he dies, then a successful argument of promissory estoppel will put right what would otherwise be wrong. Unfortunately I can't post links yet, but ta leading case is Thorner v Major.

ChristmasCarole I hope that makes sense?

ELC_2

christmas_carole wrote: »

Probate was granted two weeks ago.

That's not necessarily the end of everything, but you do need to seek formal legal advice as soon as possible.