Charities chasing legacies In Wills

Primrose

I will also post this in Retrement Planning since it straddles both sections.

i plan to update my Will in which I have left legacies to some preferred national charities but I was shocked to read that some such charities actually check the Probate office to see if legacies have been left to them and can even aggressively chase the Executors for the money.

I would like to know what charities have a record of doing this because I want to ensure that my executors are not harried in this way. i think this is in appalling bade taste and quite prepared to exclude any such charirities from a revised Will. So any experiences please?

Mistral001

If charities are doing this it could suggest that money left to charities are not going to the charities. Some wills where money is left to charity are contested by relatives and I assume that some relatives get those wills overturned without the charities having their say. The question is, should they have a say?

If you left your money to a charity and the relatives contested the will, would you want that charity to make submissions on your behalf? I am not sure what I would want that, to be honest. There is something unseemly about perhaps a big charity with perhaps highly paid lawyers, weighing in to get their money from relatives.

colino

I am personally aware of large, national charities who trawl for potential legacies. A pity they weren't more efficient in just about every aspect of their other, inner workings. Please investigate the charities you wish to bequeath a legacy to, far too many have lost sight of their triumphant aims and act as businesses to employ themselves.

PasturesNew

You could just write into your Will "And I would like some money to go to charities .... .... ..... if, at the time of my death, these are appropriate sums; the decision should be left to my executors"

rochja

Well it seems to be the RSPCA that has brought things to a head:
http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/analysis-far-charities-go-pursue-disputed-legacies/finance/article/946474
However, problems only seem to arise when executors or others wish to act contrary to the stipulations in the will

thorsoak

In my experience (working for Probate solicitors) , the larger and more well-known the charity, the more aggressive and threatening the legal team in chasing each and every legacy however small it might be. For that reason, I do not intend to leave any legacy to any of the larger charities - if I were in the position to leave more than a fiver to any charity, I would set out the gift in a letter of wishes attached to my will.

Primrose

Thank you for your various responses. I think between you, you are convincing me that a) a letter of wishes accompanying my Will is a better way to go and that b).my local community charities which are run by unpaid volunteers would be a better home for any legacies I may wish to leave.

As I hope it will be a while before I pop my clogs, can anybody tell me what the procedure would be and what would happen to any legacy if the recipient organisation no longer existed? Presumably I could have that legacy shared among any residual charities?

Mojisola

Primrose wrote: »

Thank you for your various responses. I think between you, you are convincing me that a) a letter of wishes accompanying my Will is a better way to go and that b).my local community charities which are run by unpaid volunteers would be a better home for any legacies I may wish to leave.

As I hope it will be a while before I pop my clogs, can anybody tell me what the procedure would be and what would happen to any legacy if the recipient organisation no longer existed? Presumably I could have that legacy shared among any residual charities?

As someone who helps run a little charity like that, I can tell you that even quite modest legacies make a big difference to our work. It means we can spend time on helping people instead of fundraising.

If you leave a set amount or a percentage of your estate to be divided equally among a few charities, then if any have ceased to exist, the others will benefit. Always include the charities' numbers as well as names - if a charity changes its name, a legacy could fail.

Primrose

Good point about including the charity number Mojisola. I'll remember that.

Savvy_Sue

I think that if the charity has merged with another, then it might go to the 'new' charity, but best advice on that would be to talk to your solicitor when drawing up the will.

This is not a defence of aggressive legacy chasing, however a charity's trustees have a legal duty to act in the best interests of the charity. that means that if money is due to them, they would be negligent if they did not do their best to ensure that it arrives. For example, a local sixth form said that they were raising money for us at an event before Easter one year, and I ended up making phone calls throughout the summer term trying to find out where the money had gone or when it might arrive!

We sometimes receive donations in memory of X which were raised by collections at the funeral, or by telling friends of X at the time of their death that gifts to charity would be preferred to flowers.

The last actual legacy we received arrived some years after the person's death, I suspect that if we had been aware of it we would have written to the executors, but I'm sure not aggressively.

martindow

Problems can happen when wills state fixed sums to be paid to charities and the rest shared between other beneficiaries. Circumstances can change so that the money left to charities can swallow up a much larger proportion of the estate than was intended or conversely end up as trivial donations many years later.

Can you write a will as vague as suggested leaving it to the executors to decide if the payments are appropriate or not? Maybe it is best to write wills with percentages going to beneficiaries rather than fixed sums? Or to not put it into a will at all and just have an attached letter suggesting donations to certain charities be made by beneficiaries at their discretion.