Family Rift

bsmm228

My father has recently died leaving no will and my elder sister has applied to become administrator. There are 4 of us, however, recently we had a falling out and my sister is no longer speaking to us. Where do we stand in terms of inheritance, there is a property to sell and an amount of money. Can she just sit back and do nothing or can she be forced to sell the house in order to distribute the estate? Would this mean going to court?

Ol_Jay

bsmm228 wrote: »

My father has recently died leaving no will and my elder sister has applied to become administrator. There are 4 of us, however, recently we had a falling out and my sister is no longer speaking to us. Where do we stand in terms of inheritance, there is a property to sell and an amount of money. Can she just sit back and do nothing or can she be forced to sell the house in order to distribute the estate? Would this mean going to court?

Sorry for your loss.

If your sister becomes Admin she is legally duty bound to distribute the estate according to the intestacy rules.

Sitting back and doing nothing is not an option.
She should be dealing with the estate ,paying bills,selling house etc,paying any tax due and distributing the estate four ways by the sounds of it.

If the other three of you can't cajole her into fair action? Then seeing a solicitor?... Can be frustrating i know,from my own experience.

Others will be along later with more advice. They're mainly morning people round here

dzug1

If she is intending to 'sit back and do nothing' then why is she bothering to apply for administration?


It's possible that the Probate Office may request a second administrator anyway

g6jns_2

bsmm228 wrote: »

My father has recently died leaving no will and my elder sister has applied to become administrator. There are 4 of us, however, recently we had a falling out and my sister is no longer speaking to us. Where do we stand in terms of inheritance, there is a property to sell and an amount of money. Can she just sit back and do nothing or can she be forced to sell the house in order to distribute the estate? Would this mean going to court?

If there is no will then the estate has to be distributed according to the laws of intestacy by the administrator. You could contact the Probate office and ask them if you could be joint administrator. If she refuses to act correctly then you can take her to court but that should be a last resort. In the mean time make a complete record of every phone call, email or letter to her so you have evidence.

getmore4less

Sounds like it is not a good idea to let her apply alone.

if it has not gone through yet put a stop to it and reapply with more siblings as executors.

bsmm228

dzug1 wrote: »

If she is intending to 'sit back and do nothing' then why is she bothering to apply for administration?


It's possible that the Probate Office may request a second administrator anyway

Why would the Probate Office request a second administrator, is this a usual practice?

g6jns_2

getmore4less wrote: »

Sounds like it is not a good idea to let her apply alone.

if it has not gone through yet put a stop to it and reapply with more siblings as executors.

How exactly would you do that?

getmore4less

Have you never read all the probate forms?

something you need to do I will find a link
....back soon.

getmore4less

https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/stopping-a-grant-of-representation

then follow up...

if the grant has been issued then it will be harder.

the original application should have said agreement has been given by the other siblings

dzug1

bsmm228 wrote: »

Why would the Probate Office request a second administrator, is this a usual practice?

I don't know if it's usual - but certainly happened to me some years back


Which is why I said 'may'.

g6jns_2

getmore4less wrote: »

https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance/stopping-a-grant-of-representation

then follow up...

if the grant has been issued then it will be harder.

the original application should have said agreement has been given by the other siblings

Thank you. I simply asked a question. No need to take offense. If the sibling lied when she comnpleted the form I would expect it would be easy to get her removed but if you think differently I would be interested to hear what you think.