Absolute mess, don't know where to begin

Crowdedhouse_2

Thanks everyone for your replies.

Yorkshireman99, I think aunt will definitely be next of kin as cousin had no husband, no children, father died many years ago and no brothers or sisters.

Will have a long, hard think about my next move.

PasturesNew

I'd expect the following to be close to reality:

- there probably isn't a will. A lot of people talk about wills and people being "sorted out" in it, but it's often hot air. An alcoholic is almost 99% unlikely to have ever had the wits about her to get a will sorted out. It'd be a complete waste of booze money -and- she didn't expect to be going right now.

- if the rumours of the remortgaging are true (you can download a copy of the deeds for about £3 and see what they say about ownership/charges etc).... then she's either kept up with the payments, or she's been ignoring it and they're about to repossess. In either case it's likely there'll be something of value left in the estate.

For the sake of the aunt, I'd not want to be walking away from this if at all possible. She's lost her daughter and is about to lose the house she had no idea was in such a mess.... all stuff she never expected.

Is there anywhere you can empty the house to, in order to sort it out away from the house? e.g. do you know anybody with a big barn or spare outbuilding? Or, for the sake of your aunt, are you in a position to pay for something like that in the short-term? I'd think the main priority is to go through everything in the house - get the letters into piles - and see what sort of state the underlying house is in, so you're in a position to be able to plan the next best option.

By then you'll know if there is a mortgage and a will. If there is a will .... you need to know what it says .... and then make your right, or illegal, choice. I never said that, by the way.

Aunt sounds like she's OK for a bob or two, so can probably afford to fund the house clearance to a neutral area, where everything can be sorted out/binned/recycled etc.

Keeping it all in the house will be daunting - getting it from the house into good sized storage will give you a chance at doing "first binning" and piling stuff up at the storage place in some semblance or order.

I'd just stand by the aunt.... poor thing.

You might even find that there were no remortgages (as she was unmortgageable), there is no Will - and, once emptied, the house isn't too shabby at all and can be cleaned up in 1-2 weeks with some decorator/small builder types and stuck onto the market for sale within 2-3 months from now.

Then take the aunt out for a nice cream bun and pot of tea. She needs somebody nice to treat her for once.

getmore4less

if you decide to dig in a bit.

one trick with paperwork is not to open and read everything as you go.

Some you can sort without opening
Open and sort into piles and then sort into date order.

Do a big chunk of sorting then spend a bit of time looking for clues, focus on one pile at a time making notes don't linger on reading stuff you can come back to it if you need more info details.
If you find say a pile of CC statements you can then look through for the unopened for matching envelopes to fill any gaps and try to find the latest.

It is surprising how much you can get through in a couple of hours and if you can get help(friend can be good) to just do opening and sorting even more can be got through, at this stage don't throw anything out except obvious junk mail if in doubt keep it.

When there is such a lot to do it is easy to get distracted.

nom_de_plume

And change the locks...

Crowdedhouse_2

Well, I saw aunt again today and told her what cousin's friend had said about re-mortgaging and debt. On the whole, she reacted okay, under the circumstances. Maybe she already had her own suspicions, I'm not sure.

She's talking about maybe going to see a solicitor for some advice. But says she won't do anything now until after the funeral, which we'll arrange once we get the post mortem result.

Yorkshireman99

Crowdedhouse wrote: »

Well, I saw aunt again today and told her what cousin's friend had said about re-mortgaging and debt. On the whole, she reacted okay, under the circumstances. Maybe she already had her own suspicions, I'm not sure.

She's talking about maybe going to see a solicitor for some advice. But says she won't do anything now until after the funeral, which we'll arrange once we get the post mortem result.

Who is going to pay for the funeral? If the estate has no money then if you arrange it you will have to pay the bill yourself. The local authority will pay if nobody else will. Relatives don't have to pay!

Crowdedhouse_2

Yorkshireman99, aunt will pay for funeral. She is adamant she will give my cousin a good send off.

Keep_pedalling

Crowdedhouse wrote: »

Well, I saw aunt again today and told her what cousin's friend had said about re-mortgaging and debt. On the whole, she reacted okay, under the circumstances. Maybe she already had her own suspicions, I'm not sure.

I think you should have said nothing about that until you had established the truth. Have you applied for details from the LR yet? They are a more reliable source of info than the friend of a messed up alcoholic.

Yorkshireman99

Crowdedhouse wrote: »

Yorkshireman99, aunt will pay for funeral. She is adamant she will give my cousin a good send off.

That is fine if she has the money. Sadly a number of people oh here have been caught out by this.

Crowdedhouse_2

Keeppedalling, when I told aunt about what cousin's friend had said about debts and remortgaging, I made it clear to her that cousin's friend may or may not have been correct and I was just passing the message on to her. I did not feel it was my place to withhold this information.

I said to aunt about the LR, and she doesn't want to know. I think, at the moment she's resigned herself to the fact that she won't be inheriting the house. If it turns out there is any equity left that will be a bonus, I suppose. She's now told me to not get involved in anything to do with the house and she will sort it all with a solictor's help. Fair enough.

Thanks.


Yorkshireman99 aunt has enough money and is happy to pay for everything.

Thanks.