Declaring an inheritance while on benefits

cattermole

duchy wrote: »

Lots of assumptions here

Bald facts are one sister and her partner had lots of contact with their mother -two other sisters moved away and had more sporadic contact.

Mother chose to include the sister's partner in her will as well as three sisters- possibly because he was involved with her caring .

Absent sister believes child benefit is been claimed fraudulently as niece/nephew lives elsewhere (obvious question how does she know if she lives in another country?)

Sister and partner claim benefits (again unlikely the absent sister knows what they actually claim currently)

Absent sister suspects that in the future this couple MAY claim fraudulently- but as estate hasn't yet been settled at this point it is just a belief and no offence has yet been committed.

Sounds like little love between the sisters and resentment that the Mother regards the boyfriend as "family" and equal to the sisters -and demonstrated that in her will. Could be mother felt the two of them were there for her and stayed local whereas other sisters moved away and there was no coercement involved but naturally sisters feel hurt and angry or just annoyed their "cut" was diluted.

It seems simple to me
Report CB issue now
Report the rest after the estate is settled and payments are made
Both complaints will be investigated but the OP won't be told the outcome by the authorities. and by raising the CB issue now it may encourage the couple to come off benefits (assuming that wasn't always their intention anyway) when they get their inheritance anyway as it will highlight to them that there are consequences in an incorrect claim.

I tend to agree, apart from I'm not sure whether the OP is male or female. I thought male because of the name "tekman"

Mojisola

tomtom256 wrote: »

How do they contradict. OP's family have obviously been told they are getting £50k and as such probate must have been sorted as they have been notified of their inheritance.

If probate hadn't been sorted and was still ongoing they wouldn't know how much they were due.

As such the notification letter from the executor stating you will be getting xyz on date is enough to notify the DWP.

The executors get probate before they can sort out the estate. It's having probate that gives them the authority to deal with the estate. At that stage, they may have a rough idea of how much the estate will be worth but it could be a long time before the estate is settled and any payments are made to beneficiaries.

When I have been executor, I have never sent out letters telling people that they will be getting £X until the cheques were ready to be sent out.

The beneficiaries would have been able to work out approximately how much they would get but they didn't get any official notification.

If probate has only been granted and not been sorted then at that stage they have nothing to declare, as they have no idea what they are due or when they are likely to get it.

We agree!

Being sorted and sorted are the key words in the alleged contradictory statement.

I don't understand this bit.

cattermole

Mojisola wrote: »

I don't understand this bit.

I do.

Basically probate is granted on a rough estimate of the estate.

For example until a "house" is sold which is after probabte is granted you would not know the exact value of an estate.

Or assets like shares sold etc etc.

Inland revenue liabilities

And any debts the Estate may have.

Mojisola

cattermole wrote: »

I do.

Basically probate is granted on a rough estimate of the estate.

For example until a "house" is sold which is after probabte is granted you would not know the exact value of an estate.

Or assets like shares sold etc etc.

Inland revenue liabilities

And any debts the Estate may have.

Getting probate and sorting out the estate are two completely different stages. It would very unwise for an executor to notify beneficiaries that they were going to get £X when probate is granted.

cattermole

Yes I think we all agree on this.

So what you are saying is that it would be odd for a solicitor to do this and I agree.

They might have a rough idea in their heads what they were likely to get but no Executor would commit to a precise figure until after the Estate had been finally sorted.

I think we are all saying the same thing.

tekman

cattermole wrote: »

I tend to agree, apart from I'm not sure whether the OP is male or female. I thought male because of the name "tekman"

sadly this poster has got a little mixed up here.
1 - You are correct I am the brother, I have one older sister and one younger sister and as stated previously it is the younger sister and her boyfriend who have caused all of the problems. I've been reading through the posts with interest and intend to address those which I am a little unclear with a little later tonight. Well where I live we are two hours ahead of the UK.

tekman

cattermole wrote: »

Yes I think we all agree on this.

So what you are saying is that it would be odd for a solicitor to do this and I agree.

They might have a rough idea in their heads what they were likely to get but no Executor would commit to a precise figure until after the Estate had been finally sorted.

I think we are all saying the same thing.

House was sold at end of October, final figures have been released for all four of us beneficiaries. I have signed off the final paperwork but the two schemers were after an interim payment and desperate that they should receive it sooner rather than later. This is fundamentally why a threatening email was sent via my older sister to me that they intended to take me to court for holding up proceedings as they were clearly fearful that I would attempt to contest the will which I don't happen to have the estimated £20,000 pounds for anyway.

tekman

Mojisola wrote: »

Any decent solicitor will have insisted on seeing your mother alone and talked through the will with her and kept notes of the meeting. If there were any suspicions that your mother was being coerced, then things should have been stopped.

From what I have been told, the solicitor did see my mother alone but how would I really know, its all hearsay to me.

cattermole

tekman wrote: »

House was sold at end of October, final figures have been released for all four of us beneficiaries. I have signed off the final paperwork but the two schemers were after an interim payment and desperate that they should receive it sooner rather than later. This is fundamentally why a threatening email was sent via my older sister to me that they intended to take me to court for holding up proceedings as they were clearly fearful that I would attempt to contest the will which I don't happen to have the estimated £20,000 pounds for anyway.

That explains it more fully I understand now.

The problem with contesting an Estate is that really in the end there are no winners or losers apart from the lawyers, I also think the decision would have to have been made before now as well.

I would have asked for the Power of Attorney accounts from the boyfriend before now via the Solicitor assuming you haven't done this?

tekman

[FONT=&quot]Originally Posted by duchy [/FONT][IMG]file:///C:\Users\tek\AppData\Local\Temp\msohtmlclip1\01\clip_image001.png[/IMG][FONT=&quot][/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Lots of assumptions here

Bald facts are one sister and her partner had lots of contact with their mother -two other sisters moved away and had more sporadic contact.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Just to put things a little clearer.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]After my father died in 2007 and didn’t leave a will I dealt with the necessary paperwork and sorted it all out ensuring my father’s estate went to his rightful next of kin, his wife my mother. Younger sister bugged both my older sister and myself ( the brother) about dad’s will not knowing he didn’t have one and was furious when she discovered there wasn’t one and that I had handled and ensured everything was transferred to the proper person.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]The shock of my father dying so suddenly caused my mother to have the worst mental breakdown I have ever been witness to as mum had a history of mental breakdowns and was diagnosed with schizophrenia many years ago so sadly her life had been a balancing act for many years.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I then proceeded to take care of my mother in her own home for the next four years under incredibly difficult circumstances with virtually no interaction from my younger sister and not much more from my older sister. This made me feel abandoned by my own family but being a strong person, I managed to cope with mum for a number of years. There were times when she had to be admitted to hospital as my health was beginning to deteriorate badly.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Anyway, I had plans to get married to my now wife and duly did so in 2010 but ensured all the necessary care package practices were put in place for mum to be looked after while I was away as neither of my sisters were interested or perhaps capable to look after mum while I was away. I duly came back to put the house on the market but my mother was getting worse despite my efforts to see her through this terrible illness. She became extremely dependant on me and I worried that once I had left the country to be with my wife that this would leave her vulnerable to my younger sister and unfortunately I was correct. At the time before I left the UK I reluctantly agreed that my mother would have to looked after in a nursing home and I asked my older sister to oversee this which she did but she was going through her own messy divorce at the time and was not very well emotionally connected with what she had to do to protect our mother from our evil sibling.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Naturally, my younger sister started making frequent visits to my mother and my mum latched on to her and the boyfriend as I had feared. I made numerous attempts to try to curb this interaction as I was concerned which way this would go. Roll back before I left the UK, I was told that my mother’s house would have to be sold to pay for my mother’s care until such time the money ran out and then the state would take care of her. I had no problem with this as it gave me peace of mind that mum would be taken of. It wasn’t until three years later (2013) that my older sister informed me that mum wouldn’t have to sell the house (even though she had been in care all this time) as the condition mum had didn’t warrant her selling the house to pay for her healthcare.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]At this point all the visits my younger sister and boyfriend had been making to my mother which I naively thought perhaps she had changed worried me deeply. Before I knew it, the boyfriend informed me that my mother was dying of cancer and only had a week or so to live and he had been granted temporary POA which annoyed me intensely as both my older sister and I had not been kept up to date with everything that had been going on just fed the minimum of information.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

Mother chose to include the sister's partner in her will as well as three sisters- possibly because he was involved with her caring .

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This boyfriend didn’t give a hoot about my mother, but along with my younger sister manipulated my mother in to including him in her will.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Absent sister believes child benefit is been claimed fraudulently as niece/nephew lives elsewhere (obvious question how does she know if she lives in another country?)[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Older sister wasn’t absent and is honest as the day is long and knew for fact that younger sister was fraudulently claiming child benefit. Younger sisters estranged husband is wealthy and looks after the daughter but for tax reasons didn’t want to claim the child benefit, arranged for my younger sister to receive it even though the child is not living with her. Niece/ nephew is me, the brother who lives outside of the Uk and I have no reason to disbelieve my older sister as we are both aware that our younger sister has been done before for benefit fraud in the past.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Sister and partner claim benefits (again unlikely the absent sister knows what they actually claim currently)

Absent sister suspects that in the future this couple MAY claim fraudulently- but as estate hasn't yet been settled at this point it is just a belief and no offence has yet been committed.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Absent sister - me the brother doesn’t know for a fact what benefits they claim but do know they are both on benefits and have no intention of ever coming off them.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Sounds like little love between the sisters and resentment that the Mother regards the boyfriend as "family" and equal to the sisters -and demonstrated that in her will. Could be mother felt the two of them were there for her and stayed local whereas other sisters moved away and there was no coercement involved but naturally sisters feel hurt and angry or just annoyed their "cut" was diluted.

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Coercion in this case cannot be proved this is true, but my older sister and I (the brother) know our younger sister’s modus operandi for she has been hurting our family, by lying, stealing from us for the past thirty years or so. As far as the cut being diluted, the money is merely one aspect and believe it or not the least important part of all this mess. The way this was handled so underhandedly in the first place by these two characters who are both known to the police and the boyfriend has also been in prison for fraud in the past may not be proof enough or indeed at all that they did place undue influence on our mother but I don’t think it requires much intelligence to reasonably assume this is exactly what they actually did. Proving in a court of law would probably be fruitless and most definitely expensive and besides who are the real winners in all of this anyway? I’d say the lawyers.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]I want this whole damn issue put to bed so we can move on with our lives but I my mind an adjustment is still required, hence reporting our suspicions to the benefit fraud section after they have received their ill-gotten gains, and maybe some time afterwards as someone else suggested in another post.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] It seems simple to me
Report CB issue now
Report the rest after the estate is settled and payments are made
Both complaints will be investigated but the OP won't be told the outcome by the authorities. and by raising the CB issue now it may encourage the couple to come off benefits (assuming that wasn't always their intention anyway) when they get their inheritance anyway as it will highlight to them that there are consequences in an incorrect claim.[/FONT]