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

neechofish

The doctrine of proprietory estoppel is an equitable remedy. Equity will not assist a volunteer. The crucial part is therefore the detrimental act by OP.

Errata

The bottom line is that the OP's mother asked them on several occasions over what appears to be a period of 10 months to take her to a solicitor so she could make a new will and the OP refused to do so.

neechofish

Whilst that is evidence as to the Deceased's intentions, it is not OP acting to her detriment.

Op - be mindful of time limits, any claim under the Inheritance Provisions should be issued within 6 months of the date of the grant of probate. (This can be extended at the courts discretion but I suggest its doubtful in this case as you aware of the grant) you have instructed solicitors who will have advised you accordingly and with more information on which to base their advice

John_Pierpoint

What happened to the woman who gave up her job etc, and then the parents left the estate to a charity?

It was a high profile case in the last half dozen years.

Soleil_lune

ELC wrote: »

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?

This is really nothing like the OP's situation.

She spent years away from the mother while the sister looked after her, and I really don't blame the sister for not sharing anything: I wouldn't either.

Sorry OP, I am sorry your mother died, but I don't think you have a case, if there is absolutely nothing in writing.

My friend's husband's father had a massive fallout with his father around 1980 - fault on both sides as with the majority of cases - and he had a fair sized estate, (worth about £300K by the late 80s, probably about half a million or more now.)

When he died, (around 1990,) he left the LOT to the brother of my friend's husband, (and his wife and 2 children,) who had nursed him and cared for him for the last 7 years of his life while he had been infirm.

My friend's husband's father said to his wife (my friend's husband's mother,) that it was a disgrace, and he was going to contest the will, and she said 'don't you bloody DARE! You had nothing to do with that man for the past 10 years, you have no right to anything,' and she refused to support him. Sadly, the grandson, (my friend's son) got nothing, while his 2 cousins got £35,000 each (prob about £50,000 in today's money.)

Their son, who was about 10 or 11, is now in his 40s and is still bitter about this; over 20 years later, and not a month goes by without him droning on about how his dad falling out with his grandfather lost him 'his inheritance.' Money does weird things to people.

As an aside: who would work for free for 30 years anyway? :huh:

spacey2012

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

What happened to the woman who gave up her job etc, and then the parents left the estate to a charity?

It was a high profile case in the last half dozen years.

She won, as they had failed to make a provision for her in the will, the judge commented that had they made a provision of just a sixpence, she would have had no case.
As they failed to make any provision, the will was overruled and the estate fell to default legal provision.

Dunroamin

Errata wrote: »

The bottom line is that the OP's mother asked them on several occasions over what appears to be a period of 10 months to take her to a solicitor so she could make a new will and the OP refused to do so.

Exactly...

Soleil_lune

spacey2012 wrote: »

She won, as they had failed to make a provision for her in the will, the judge commented that had they made a provision of just a sixpence, she would have had no case.
As they failed to make any provision, the will was overruled and the estate fell to default legal provision.

As I said, the OP's situation was nothing like this.

madbadrob

However there have been cases recently where courts have overturned legal wills or rather added to them. I have already posted one where the woman who died had not spoken to her daughter since she wa 15 yrs old because she chose a guy her mother didnt approve of. The daughter for many years tried to reconcile but the mother would have nothing of it. When the mother died she left her rather large estate to the RSPCA. The daughter contested the will and the courts agreed that she should have some of the estate and ordered 50k. This would have been higher had the daughter presented to the court clear financial accounts showing her situation.

The OP may well have a case through the courts especially if she could find people who would be willing to attend the court to say that they were present when the mother had said she wanted to include her daughter in the will.

BTW it wasnt the OP who refused to take her to a solicitor but the sister.

Disinheriting children is not as easy as just not including them in the will anymore. There as been enough cases now to set common law in these situations and the government need to look at this area of probate law and the inheritance act because it is so ambigious (sp) and no two judges will deliver the same decisions

Rob

Errata

BTW it wasnt the OP who refused to take her to a solicitor but the sister.

It was the OP

She asked me on several occasions to take her to the solicitors so she could change her will to include me, I felt a bit awkward about this as I thought it would look really bad so I kept telling her not to worry and we would do it in the free will month of October, sadly she died suddenly in August before she got to put her new will in force.