Can stepmother change fathers will

Nicki

Just to add that asking to hold onto step mums will won't help because all she needs to do to revoke that will is to make a new one. She doesn't need to destroy the earlier one or to have it in her possession at the time.

unforeseen

Do you know who were the executors on your FILS will? If SIL or hubble then they could approach the solicitor who drew it to see if they still hold a copy

Mojisola

unforeseen wrote: »

Do you know who were the executors on your FILS will? If SIL or hubble then they could approach the solicitor who drew it to see if they still hold a copy

They should still have a copy in their files but they shouldn't give it to anyone other than the executor.

susancs

Lulu0110 wrote: »

Thank you for all the input. The will is not on the Probate link although this may be too soon.

If the deceased and his wife had joint tenancy (ownership) of property and bank accounts etc were in joint names then probate would not be required or the will come into play as the everything would pass onto the surviving spouse. It is usually just a matter of the survivor sending in a copy of the death certificate with relevant forms to get property and assets transfered into the their sole name.

rpc

susancs wrote: »

If the deceased and his wife had joint tenancy (ownership) of property and bank accounts etc were in joint names then probate would not be required or the will come into play as the everything would pass onto the surviving spouse. It is usually just a matter of the survivor sending in a copy of the death certificate with relevant forms to get property and assets transfered into the their sole name.

The will does come into play, but can sometimes be circumvented by breaking the law as you describe.

Just because probate isn't always required, it doesn't mean that a will is not binding.

Mojisola

susancs wrote: »

If the deceased and his wife had joint tenancy (ownership) of property and bank accounts etc were in joint names then probate would not be required or the will come into play as the everything would pass onto the surviving spouse. It is usually just a matter of the survivor sending in a copy of the death certificate with relevant forms to get property and assets transfered into the their sole name.

rpc wrote: »

The will does come into play, but can sometimes be circumvented by breaking the law as you describe.

Just because probate isn't always required, it doesn't mean that a will is not binding.

Why is that breaking the law? When Mum died, she left everything to Dad - most of their accounts and the house were in joint names so they automatically became Dad's; the other things were gathered in using the will, death certificate and identification of the executor. No probate was needed.

susancs

Mojisola wrote: »

Why is that breaking the law? When Mum died, she left everything to Dad - most of their accounts and the house were in joint names so they automatically became Dad's; the other things were gathered in using the will, death certificate and identification of the executor. No probate was needed.

We had the same recently when Dad died. Thee solicitors who were named as executors at the time of Dads will told us that probate or the will was not required as everything was in joint names and Mum as the spouse (with no dependant children) was entitled to it all . The Govt Probate office when contacted said the same thing as did the land registry here and in another country, DLVA, bank accounts and private pensions. I doubt very much that all these different Govt offices, highly respected firm of solicitors and financial instutions would all been party to breaking the law as rpc sugguests.