Property in intestancy?

Brighty

Hi all

My mother in law passed away recently.

She owned a house as tenants in common 50/50 with her husband. House is worth approx £350k. House was originally owner by just MIL before she married, but became jointly owned after a remortgage.

She has 2 children from a previous marriage, my wife and her brother. No children from the second marriage and step dad has no other kids.

MIL had a will, made fairly recently, that left her half of the house to the 2 children, to be kept in trust or something, to enable the step dad to live there until his death. So this was obviously her wishes.

Unfortunately the will is unsigned and there seems to be no previous will, so it looks like the estate is intestate. As her half the house plus other assets comes to under £250k, rules of intestancy would mean the step dad inherits it all.

I assume step dad will now become the estate administrator. If so, and he wishes to honour the intent of the will, how would he go about transferring ownership so that house would be a 50/25/25 split, but with a caveat that he can stay in the property?

If he is not willing to honour the will, i assume nothing can be done?

Thanks

Brighty

Yorkshireman99

Are you sure that the solicitor does not have the signed copy of the will? That is the first thing to check. If there is no sugned copy the someone will need to apply for letters of administration. If he wants to honour the will the deeds of variation will do it though it would be best to use a solcitor to do the work.

Brighty

Thanks for the reply. I had assumed deed of variation was just for wills, so that's a real help. I'll bring it up at an appropriate point.
Looks like the will was a cheapo come to your house will writer job, so no solicitor to hold a copy.
Seems like everything is in a real mess, death mortgage cover that now seems to not exist, death policies paying out to the 4 grand kids that my wife was told about a few years ago seem to have no paperwork. Having done the probate for both my parents, i'd love to wade in and sort this mess out, but it's not my place, i'm stuck at home minding the kids, while wife and family are off sorting funeral and going through the paperwork.

Brighty

Mojisola

Brighty wrote: »

Looks like the will was a cheapo come to your house will writer job, so no solicitor to hold a copy.

One of the ways these companies make money is by getting you to pay an annual fee to store the signed will - have you checked with them to see if they have the original?

Yorkshireman99

Brighty wrote: »

Thanks for the reply. I had assumed deed of variation was just for wills, so that's a real help. I'll bring it up at an appropriate point.
Looks like the will was a cheapo come to your house will writer job, so no solicitor to hold a copy.
Seems like everything is in a real mess, death mortgage cover that now seems to not exist, death policies paying out to the 4 grand kids that my wife was told about a few years ago seem to have no paperwork. Having done the probate for both my parents, i'd love to wade in and sort this mess out, but it's not my place, i'm stuck at home minding the kids, while wife and family are off sorting funeral and going through the paperwork.

Brighty

Even will writers might be able to help as they sometimes offer a will storage facility. Worth asking anyway.

Brighty

Was a solicitor apparantly, no copy held in their vault, looks like mil had the original to sign, then never got round to it. She was a bit disorganised.

Brighty