good old mirror will shafting be warned

WELLSIANA

I have just been served a good old mirror will shafting...the other party totally takes all my mothers cake. She made a will of the mirror type with her husband of 20years plus and a step father to me..good old decent 30% to me 30% my sister 30% his daughter..very fair , then mother did a silly schoolboy error..she died..two years after he revoked all the agreed wishes and altered it to 100% to his daughter...bit harsh ole boy...he has now passed and everything sits in his daughters lap and we are not talking pence here...but wait..it gets worse , he still gets buried beside my mum and his daughter has the stone etched "together again" ..what rest is that ? so another ploy..i thought i would exhume mum and bring her back to where she has family , dooohh ..his daughter owns the plot now as the will was revoked...i am rather annoyed ..Mirror wills all about trust...yeah right..as long as you do not die first .

RAS

I do wish couples who have first (or second) families had to be warned about this sort of problem before they wrote wills.

Sorry about your situation OP.

paddy's_mum

WELLSIANA wrote: »

i thought i would exhume mum

Lord above, lady!

You planned to disturb your mother's grave in order to express your distress and bitterness?

I will gladly apologise if I've got it wrong but I will say this - it has been my experience in life that hate damages only the hater. It is corrosive. It destroys balance and happiness. It does not generally harm the one who is hated.

You have lost an expected inheritance but don't lose your way, and indeed your self-esteem, in a welter of anger and resentment.

I am sorry for your hurt and hope that you can find a way to unload this burden of dismay. Good luck.

Gingernutty

I take it that the stepsister isn't minded to sign a Deed of Variation agreeing to share the inheritance three ways?

POPPYOSCAR

Presumably your mother wanted to be buried with her husband?


If so to exhume her because of the way you feel is very spiteful.


Do not let money make you that way.

POPPYOSCAR

RAS wrote: »

I do wish couples who have first (or second) families had to be warned about this sort of problem before they wrote wills.

Sorry about your situation OP.

I think they are, but most people trust their OH to carry out their wishes.


Perhaps there was a falling out with the step-father?

JimmyTheWig

paddy's_mum wrote: »

Lord above, lady!

You planned to disturb your mother's grave in order to express your distress and bitterness?

POPPYOSCAR wrote: »

Presumably your mother wanted to be buried with her husband?

Presumably she wanted to be buried with the husband who was going to look out for her children in the event of her death. That husband, it turns out, didn't exist. I think wanting to move her in those circumstances is perfectly reasonable.

TonyMMM

You would need a licence from the Ministry of Justice for an exhumation - they will take some convincing.

Petra_70

WELLSIANA wrote: »

I have just been served a good old mirror will shafting...the other party totally takes all my mothers cake. She made a will of the mirror type with her husband of 20years plus and a step father to me..good old decent 30% to me 30% my sister 30% his daughter..very fair , then mother did a silly schoolboy error..she died..two years after he revoked all the agreed wishes and altered it to 100% to his daughter...bit harsh ole boy...he has now passed and everything sits in his daughters lap and we are not talking pence here...but wait..it gets worse , he still gets buried beside my mum and his daughter has the stone etched "together again" ..what rest is that ? so another ploy..i thought i would exhume mum and bring her back to where she has family , dooohh ..his daughter owns the plot now as the will was revoked...i am rather annoyed ..Mirror wills all about trust...yeah right..as long as you do not die first .

Wow, it's not very often I am gobsmacked, but this has done it for me today.

It may be just me, but the jovial attitude in this post, and the general tone of the post, seems to suggest that the OP is more concerned about not getting her cut in the will, than she is about the loss of her mother. If my mother died, the last thing I would be thinking of is how much she has left me in her will; I would be so devastated that I had lost my mother!

And it always amazes me how people think they have an automatic entitlement to their parents wealth when they die. In the case of stepfamilies/second marriage; if a parent was that desperate to make sure that their offspring got their money when they died, they would put something in place legally to protect their children's inheritance; like a pre-nup.

The mother didn't do this. She decided to let her husband have all the money in the event of her death... I wonder why?!!!

And as for digging her up to put her where YOU want her! Good Lord above; words fail me! :eek:

Keep_pedalling

JimmyTheWig wrote: »

Presumably she wanted to be buried with the husband who was going to look out for her children in the event of her death. That husband, it turns out, didn't exist. I think wanting to move her in those circumstances is perfectly reasonable.

Trouble is we don't really know the circumstances, there could be any number reasons he changed his will and some of those would be more than fair, for instance if 2 of the children are well off and the other is struggling financially then I could understand why this would be done.

But what ever the reason exhuming the body is just plain ridiculous.

Pricivius

Tricky one. Where a couple make mirror wills, and then one survives the other by many years, perhaps remarrying, maybe having more kids, possibly no longer in touch with deceased partner's family and having a new life/hobbies/friends/family, would the deceased partner really expect the surviving partner to respect the will they made all those years earlier?

As others have pointed out, there are ways to protect the wishes of whichever partner dies first, and couples should be made aware of their options in this respect. If they chose not to take this route, they run the risk of the surviving partner re-writing their will to reflect their life.

I am in a very similar situation with two sets of parent/step-parent! I fully expect to receive nothing whatsoever from the surviving partner of one parent who is deceased, whilst the other will be a watching brief and a who knows!