mothers will, greedy sister

curty510

Hi all, looking for some advice please. My mother has recently passed away, the funeral was only yesterday but my greedy sister is at it. My mother left a will leaving her house and savings to be divided between my sister, brother and me. But my sister has started dictating what we will do with the house and money. She wants to rent the house out, but I don't as it's 300 miles from me, I want to sell and divide the money. She is also saying we need to buy a holiday home in Cornwall with the money to share, again I don't.

It's causing a family rift already. My question us can she force us to do this? Or will the estate be divided 3 ways as per the will? Also my brother and sister have a copy of the will but i don't, they like keeping me in the dark m I'm just suspecting foul play.

Yorkshireman99

curty510 wrote: »

Hi all, looking for some advice please. My mother has recently passed away, the funeral was only yesterday but my greedy sister is at it. My mother left a will leaving her house and savings to be divided between my sister, brother and me. But my sister has started dictating what we will do with the house and money. She wants to rent the house out, but I don't as it's 300 miles from me, I want to sell and divide the money. She is also saying we need to buy a holiday home in Cornwall with the money to share, again I don't.

It's causing a family rift already. My question us can she force us to do this? Or will the estate be divided 3 ways as per the will? Also my brother and sister have a copy of the will but i don't, they like keeping me in the dark m I'm just suspecting foul play.

Who is the executor?

jjj1980

If your brother and sister want to rent the house out, they will have to find a way to raise the funds to pay you out share and effectively buy you out. Or, if they want to go down the route of selling to buy a holiday home, pay you out once the house sells and buy a cheaper holiday home.

Either way, no they cannot force you to rent out the existing house/buy something else.

You need to get some legal advice and a copy of the Will from probate.

Tuesday_Tenor

The executor(s) have to distribute the estate according to the details in the will.

First of all, as asked above, who is/are the executors named in the will? If you are one, you will be equally responsible for getting it right, and you MUST have a copy of the will.

The executors will have to obtain probate, as there is a property involved. This may take a few months to gather all the information required.

If you are not an executor, as an equal beneficiary you would be given a copy of the will straightaway by a sensible executor. If they won't, you (or anyone else) can eventually buy a copy for £10 once probate is granted and the will becomes a public document. If the executors continue to refuse you a copy, point this out to them.

There is no way the executors could do anything with the non-property part of your inheritance. This will have to come to you, unless you agree otherwise. So do not sign anything you do not agree with.

The property could be more problematical, depending what the will says. If the will says it is to be sold, no problem, the executors must sell it. If the will leaves it to you equally, so you all immediately become co-owners, then all of you will need to agree what to do. One of you can't sell without the agreement of the others; ultimately you could go to court to force a sale, but that would be very costly.

I don't know how easy it would be for one owner to try to rent it out, if another owner doesn't agree. I can't see how you can be forced to take on the legal obligations of being a landlord if you don't want to be one. Someone else can advise on this.
At the very least:
- you would get one-third of the profit
- you could research the legal obligations and hassles of being a landlord, and point these out to your sister. She sounds like someone who doesn't think things through very well...

margaretclare

Nobody needs to buy a holiday home, in Cornwall or anywhere else!

TBagpuss

I'm sory for your loss.

As others have said, the key issues are what exactly the will says, and who the executors are.

he most common wording in a will instructs the executors to get in all ofthe assets and this would mean selling any property etc, then distributing the money in accordance with the will. the executors have to act in accordance with the will, and even if your brother and sister are executors and you are not, thye have a duty to you, they can't make decisios which benefit themselves but not you.

As a frst step, i would suggest that you ask your brother and your sistetr to show you the will and let you make a copy.

then you can take the time to read it and, if necessary, get some advice about the wording ad what it means.

TYou siblings cannot force you to buy a holiday home. It is extremely unlikely that they can force you to retian the hosue and rent it out - it's probable that that the will provides for it to be sold, but even ifit smpl passes to the three of you, a joint owner can force a sale. While there are situations where this is difficult, yours is unlikely to be one of them. It is however time consuming and expensive so hopefuly it won't come to that.

If you know which solicitor drew up the will, then it may be worth you contacting them, with a copy of your mum's death certificate, and asking them whether they can provide you with a copy. If you are an executor they should be able to do so (assuming they hold the original or a copy).

If you are not an executor then they won't be able to give you any information, but as PPs have said, you will be able t oget a copy of the will from the probate office once probate has been granted. (It is unlikely that it iwould be in your sister and brtohter's interests to destroy the will, as under intestacy, you and they would inherit in equal shares, and you and they would all be equally entitled to apply to administer the estate.)

If your sister and brother both want to keep the hosue an rent it out then there is no reason why they could not buy your 1/3 share from the estate, for 1/3 of the open market value of the property.

BJV

Such a shame that your mums estate which I am sure she worked and saved for is going to cause a split. It happened when my nan died. Horrible ! My anuty had cleared out her house even her old fur coat when she was in hospital. Horrible.

I hate to say it but a big chunk of money dangled in front of some people makes them do strange things.

I would get legal advice as soon as possible and do not let them bulldoze you into anything you do not want to do.

Keep_pedalling

Put your foot down. Tell them in no uncertain terms that you are not interested in being a landlord, and that unless you receive your inheritance as cash, regardless of cost to the estate you will force a sale of the house.

Hopefully just the threat of that should focus their minds, and they will do the right thing.

TBagpuss

Just another thouht - you refer to your sister as 'greedy' but although she does seem to be trying to get you agree to smething which doesn't suit you, she doesn't seem to be asking for more than her share of the estate, so it isn't necessarily greed which motivates her.

She may also have a strong emptional attachmtn to the hosue and be suggesting that it is kept and rented out becuase that allos you all to have a return on the asset but you don't have to sell the 'family home'

Of course, she may just be pushy and/or greedy but it is worth considering whether there may be other motives for her behaviour - having just lost your mum you are all no doubt upset and people do react in different ways to grief. Understnading why someone is reacting the way they are can make it easier to work out how to deal with them - for instace, if her underlying motice is that she doesn't like the dea if the hosue being sold to strnagers then "I can't bear that thought of strnagers living there as tenants, making changes and us, as landlords, having to see that" or "I understand not wanting to sell, it's hard to saygoodbye to a house with so many happy memories, but I think it would be even harder to own it but see strangers living there" might be a more effective approach than "I don't want to rent the house, i want my money"

troubleinparadise

TBagpuss has a good point, but at the same time the funeral was apparently only yesterday, so Mum can't have died very long ago, and already decisions are being pushed for about some fairly major issues, such as becoming landlords and buying a holiday home.

I would suggest that no-one is probably in the right frame of mind just yet to tackle these matters; as it is, probate will need to be achieved before any steps can be taken re the house, and that will take a few weeks.

Perhaps all of you need to slow down a little, clarify who the executors are and start from the beginning, and take time to understand what the will says and the implications of that first. And don't forget to take care of yourselves after going through a big loss.

TBagpuss

The reason I raised it was because I suddenly recalled a situation where I was on the sidelines - there was a lot of tension between the siblings involved and it suddenly dawned on me that a big part of the problem was that Sibling A's coping strategy / reaction to grief was to try to do AllTheThings right away, presumably as displacement activity, and felt that they couldn't really grieve properly until the practical issues were dealt with.

Sibling B was the opposite, and couldn't face the thought of disposing of anything until they had had time to mourn.

In that case, they were able to talk and agree a compromise but it did take some input from third parties because each of the siblings felt the other was being unreasonable, pushy/obstructive and insensitive.