Mums will went wrong

getmore4less

dzug1 wrote: »

Clutching at straws?


If such witnesses are found you then need to establish what was in the will (the witnesses do not have to have seen the contents and if they did may not remember that accurately) and prove it was destroyed maliciously. Your mother may well have torn it up herself if she changed her mind and was going to make another one.



How do you PROVE that? You may (think you) know it but that really isn't enough

Thats the point the OP has it in their head there is a newer will, for that to be the case there would need to be independant witnesses, as the primary carer thye would have a good idea of the posiible candidates and can ask.

In the absence of any witnesses there is no known will one thing less to get angry about.

Mojisola

Ronin1978111 wrote: »

I have paid things out of my own money, like death certificates etc. I also have to drive 40 miles to my mums town when going to my house.

Anything you have spent out on dealing with the estate can be claimed back - certificates, mileage, phone calls, stamps, anyone else you've paid like cleaners or house clearance, etc.

Tuesday_Tenor

Ronin1978111 wrote: »

Is there any way I can make this situation better for my self?

Only these I think, sadly:

1. Claim all reasonable expenses from the estate, as executor: e.g. death certs and travel expenses. You can't charge for your time, but you shouldn't be out of pocket at all.

2. Definitely use a solicitor to do the probate (applying for, gathering assets, distributing bequests, producing estate accounts). You can remain the executor, as you were the one your mum trusted to do the job, and ultimately will have to 'sign off' what the solicitor produces. But using the solicitor will reduce the amount of contact you need to have with siblings over such matters. You might prefer to use a different solicitor, as the existing one is part of the 'upset', though I agree with others that it isn't possible to actually blame him for the situation. The solicitor's fee will come out of the residual estate, of course, so all siblings inheritance of this,including yours, will be reduced equally. But for reducing hassle with the siblings, I'd personally consider it money well spent.

3. Take some consolation that if a later, signed, will had been found you might have been dealing with a different sort of mess, that might have left you all with nothing/hardly anything. If your mum had a cancer that was affecting her brain, any of your siblings might have challenged the will on the grounds of her lack of mental capacity, or undue influence by you. It doesn't sound as though either of these would have been provable, but if through stupidity the sibling proceeded, the court case to establish that might well have eaten up most of this estate, which if I've read it correctly comes to something in the region of £20-£40K.

4. That when all this is over you don't have to have any sort of relationship at all with your siblings. The shared link to your mother is no longer there; you don't need to maintain a link at all.

I wouldn't renounce the executorship completely.
I believe that if you did, then any of your siblings could apply to deal with it (becoming Administrator , using 'letters of administration (with will)'. Which is not what your mother wanted.

This sorry story is a lesson to us all to not leave sorting out our wills until it's too late.
Sorry for your situation.

Ronin1978111

Tuesday_Tenor wrote: »

4. That when all this is over you don't have to have any sort of relationship at all with your siblings. The shared link to your mother is no longer there; you don't need to maintain a link at all.

.





Sorry for your situation.

I'm sure my sister will pester me for the jewellery she stole. She will deny it even though she was the last to be seen with it. The valid will states that she gets the remainder of her jewellery however I have no idea what other jewellery mum had apart from the rings she wore. She also gifted some to family in ireland 7 months ago so she'll probably expect that aswell.

Regarding probate, the solicitor told me that probate was not needed and it could be done another way? Is that right?

Tuesday_Tenor

Ronin1978111 wrote: »

Regarding probate, the solicitor told me that probate was not needed and it could be done another way? Is that right?

Hmmm ....

It used to be the case that any estate valued over a certain amount used to have to go through probate. When I was an executor I think it was £5K, but may have been more (£10K ?) recently.

The issue was muddied somewhat by the fact that banks and building societies set their own thresholds for expecting to see a grant of probate. Some institutions will release up to £15K to the executor without probate, on receipt of death certificate and/or will, and the signing of an indemnity.

The goverment's own website now makes no mention of a financial threshold for the requirement of probale.

It only says that you need probate if land, property or shares are involved, or if the banks/building societies require it ....

See the section
'When a grant of representation may not be required'
in
https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/overview

So possibly the solicitor is correct .......

Tuesday_Tenor

Ronin1978111 wrote: »

I'm sure my sister will pester me for the jewellery she stole. She will deny it even though she was the last to be seen with it. The valid will states that she gets the remainder of her jewellery however I have no idea what other jewellery mum had apart from the rings she wore. She also gifted some to family in ireland 7 months ago so she'll probably expect that aswell.

Eh...? If she has already taken the jewellery how can she expect it to be produced?

If she is expecting a cash alternative then, no, sorry, it doesn't work like that. If any specific item (house, car, jewellry) mentioned in a will no longer exists or was no longer owned by the testator at time of death, then the bequest fails. Since the will was written, an item may have been sold/given away/lost/eaten by the dog .... In any such circumstance it is no longer part of the estate.

This is why you you need to work through a solicitor who can put this information in writing.

The estate accounts will include the list of the assets and will not include any jewellry if no jewellery is found in the possessions/bank safe of the deceased. If jewellery is mentioned in the will, then I would expect the solicitor to make some specific comment confirming that there is no jewellery in the estate.

Tuesday_Tenor

Ronin1978111 wrote: »

.... however I have no idea what other jewellery mum had apart from the rings she wore ....

Be aware that, in due course, as executor it IS your responsiblity to know and list the assets that Mum had, such as jewwellry.

You may not know now, but you will need to do so.
I hope you are able to keep your mother's possessions (/now the estate's assets) safe from the siblings you deem dishonest.

Ronin1978111

My sister would deny taking the jewellery even if she was caught red handed! She showed my brother the bag of jewellery and said that it was what mum was leaving her! Next day it was gone and so was she. This took place on the night before my mum died.

She is the sort if scum who discusses a will when her mum is dying upstairs but did not visit her once while on her death bed.

I mentioned to the solicitor that I thought she took jewellery, to which he replied "she's had it then". He also said that another woman was left two rings by my mum, and these rings would need to be bought out of the estate if they cannot be found.

I'm confused now as shouldn't this gift fail also??


As for the house, I changed the locks when I left because I found my mums keys out of her handbag on the table and thought that she may have got a key cut while I was busy nursing mum. Sounds extreme but she is beyond scum.

getmore4less

Tuesday_Tenor wrote: »

Hmmm ....

It used to be the case that any estate valued over a certain amount used to have to go through probate. When I was an executor I think it was £5K, but may have been more (£10K ?) recently.

The issue was muddied somewhat by the fact that banks and building societies set their own thresholds for expecting to see a grant of probate. Some institutions will release up to £15K to the executor without probate, on receipt of death certificate and/or will, and the signing of an indemnity.

The goverment's own website now makes no mention of a financial threshold for the requirement of probale.

It only says that you need probate if land, property or shares are involved, or if the banks/building societies require it ....

See the section
'When a grant of representation may not be required'
in
https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/overview

So possibly the solicitor is correct .......

AIUI is still £5k but no one checks so if the grant is not asked for to releases assets it is not needed, some institutions will release well over £15k, Santander <=£25k, Barclays <£30k

TBagpuss

Ronin1978111 wrote: »

I mentioned to the solicitor that I thought she took jewellery, to which he replied "she's had it then". He also said that another woman was left two rings by my mum, and these rings would need to be bought out of the estate if they cannot be found.

I'm confused now as shouldn't this gift fail also??


.

You can report the jewellry as stolen, to the police, if you wish.

So far as the jewellry for your sister and for the other individual are concerned, this depends on exactly how the will was written - if you say "I leave my diamond engagement ring to my daughter" then daughter gets the diamond engagement ring, but if mum sells or loses the ring before she dies then the gift fails. If she said the same thing and the ring was in her possession when she died, but then went missing, then the gift didn't fail, as it was there to give at the time of the death, and the estate would have to replace it.

I would second the advice to get a solicitor involved to help you with the probate, as, as executor, you have legal responsibilities to carry out the terms of the will so it is important that you clearly understand what the terms are.

If you think that your mum may have signed a later will then you would need to find who witnessed it, and if they are willing and able to confirm that she signed a later will then it may be possible to challenge the older one. However, this would not automatically mean you would get more - it would depend what evidence there was of her intentions. And as the estate is fairly small, it's likely that the costs would eat up the estate.

It sounds as though the solicitor did make efforts to see your mum, and the PP who said they could not have contacted you without breaching client confidentiality, unless your mum had given then explicit authority to do so, is correct.