Inheritence question

GazzaHT

Good evening,

Lurked on this site for ages but now really need advice please.

My mother passed away two weeks ago. She left a will, I have two sisters and one of them is named along with me as executors on it.

No property owned so hopefully will be fairly straightforward except......

She had 6 grandchildren and had a Santender savings account for each with varying amounts in each account depending on their ages. Her oldest grandchild, my son "went off the rails" several years ago and is addicted to hard drugs. His account obviously has the most in it as he is the oldest (23 years old), not a great deal but over a thousand pounds. The will makes no direct mention to these accounts.

Is there any way at this stage I can stop him getting this money as it will simply be used on buying drugs ?!?!?!

Apologies as i know this is brief but I will supply further details if needed.

Thank you in advance.

duchy

Are the accounts in her name or the children's names ?

If they are in her name only as executors you have a legal responsibility to follow the will exactly (so the money becomes part of the estate -so belongs to the heirs named in the will.) If the accounts are in the names of the children - the money belongs to them and you can't with-hold them

poppystar

Whether the accounts are in your mother's name or in the children's names seems to be the first thing to clarify. If in her name solely then I would expect them to be part of her estate and not be seen as having anything to do with the grandchildren even if you know that was what she intended. So distribution of the monies would then depend on the directions in the Will.

GazzaHT

Thanks for the quick replies. They are in the children names but have her name listed underneath them as a trustee.

FreeBear

A suggestion - Quietly forget about the problem account and leave him to find it when he is ready. To do that, he can use the mylostaccount.org.uk, it is his account after all, and not really your problem.


If it helps, I am also an executor of an estate with a similar issue (druggie, abuse, and violent son) and have come across some premium bonds in his name - Conveniently, I do not have his address to send them to, so I won't

Savvy_Sue

TBH, £1000+ isn't going to go that far / last that long, and when it's gone it's gone, so while I would not rush to hand it over I also wouldn't worry about doing so.

Any grandchildren under 18? You may have to appoint trustees for them.