Advice needed.

TBagpuss

As others have said, things will depend on how Auntie's assets were held.

If they were held in joint bank accounts, or if she and partner owned a house as Joint Tenants, then he would automatically be entitld to the stuff in the joint accounts, as from the moemnt of her death. It would not form part of her estate.

Things in her sole name are part of her estate and will go to her family members, following intestacy rules.

If the other relation died before Auntie, even if their estate has not yet been distributed, then anything left to Auntie will fall into her estate. Her executors / administrators would need to contact whoever is the executor for the other relation.

If the other relative died after auntie did, then (unless Other Relative's will says otherwise) the gift to auntie fails.

troubleinparadise

Whilst obviously the laws of intestacy apply as there is no will, I do feel somewhat sorry for the long term partner who supported the deceased auntie financially for all those years, and who now has her relatives to contend with on top of his loss!

Yorkshireman99

troubleinparadise wrote: »

Whilst obviously the laws of intestacy apply as there is no will, I do feel somewhat sorry for the long term partner who supported the deceased auntie financially for all those years, and who now has her relatives to contend with on top of his loss!

Sadly it is just another example of why everyone, even youngsters, should make a will and keep it updated. There was something in the press today stating that more than 60% of the UK adult population don't have one.

swingaloo

I lived with my partner for 15 years quite happily but we decided to marry last year for the very reason that we both wished the other to benefit rather than distant relatives coming out of the woodwork.

We have supported each other and would have been mortified to know that the remaining one of us would be stripped of what we had accumulated together. We were as close and long term as many married couples but I guess nothing beats getting things sorted before the worst happens.

Hope he OPs family give some thought to the aunties partner rather than assuming he should not be looked after after his partners death as he cared for her during her life.

Savvy_Sue

forgive me if I've misunderstood this, but if aunty did not own or co-own the house in which she lived with her unmarried partner, what is there really for her to pass on? You say she never worked and was 'kept' by her partner, so what is it you're after?

Yorkshireman99

swingaloo wrote: »

I lived with my partner for 15 years quite happily but we decided to marry last year for the very reason that we both wished the other to benefit rather than distant relatives coming out of the woodwork.

We have supported each other and would have been mortified to know that the remaining one of us would be stripped of what we had accumulated together. We were as close and long term as many married couples but I guess nothing beats getting things sorted before the worst happens.

Hope he OPs family give some thought to the aunties partner rather than assuming he should not be looked after after his partners death as he cared for her during her life.

It is just a matter of choice really. If you want all the legal benefits of marriage then you choose to do so. Those who choose not to do so must accept the legal consequences. Sadly many people do not understand the consequences so perhaps it is another thing that should be taught in schools.

Malthusian

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Sadly many people do not understand the consequences so perhaps it is another thing that should be taught in schools.

I wouldn't trust most teachers to spell "intestate", let alone correctly deliver up-to-date information on the inheritance system. But in fairness to our teachers, the children wouldn't be listening anyway. I can't imagine anything that would have sent me to sleep quicker as a 13- or 15-year-old than a lesson on intestacy rules, and I like finance.

As with all basic financial lessons it should be taught by the parents. If the parents are clueless but their children don't want to be, all the information is out there.

Whenever it is revealed that most people in the UK are clueless about pensions or inheritance or some other aspect of personal finance the cry always go up "it should be taught in schools". Why? By the time the kid comes out of school he will have forgotten it and what he has forgotten was of little use anyway because the rules will have changed. When a 30- or 40-year-old adult does not know how his assets will be inherited it is not because his teachers failed to teach him 20-30 years ago. It is because he hasn't bothered to find out in the present.

The 60% figure does not really concern me, given the percentage of the adult population that have no net assets to speak of and for whom intestacy achieves the desired result (I'm one of them, at least for the moment).

Yorkshireman99

Malthusian wrote: »

I wouldn't trust most teachers to spell "intestate", let alone correctly deliver up-to-date information on the inheritance system. But in fairness to our teachers, the children wouldn't be listening anyway. I can't imagine anything that would have sent me to sleep quicker as a 13- or 15-year-old than a lesson on intestacy rules, and I like finance.

As with all basic financial lessons it should be taught by the parents. If the parents are clueless but their children don't want to be, all the information is out there.

Whenever it is revealed that most people in the UK are clueless about pensions or inheritance or some other aspect of personal finance the cry always go up "it should be taught in schools". Why? By the time the kid comes out of school he will have forgotten it and what he has forgotten was of little use anyway because the rules will have changed. When a 30- or 40-year-old adult does not know how his assets will be inherited it is not because his teachers failed to teach him 20-30 years ago. It is because he hasn't bothered to find out in the present.

The 60% figure does not really concern me, given the percentage of the adult population that have no net assets to speak of and for whom intestacy achieves the desired result (I'm one of them, at least for the moment).

You have entirely missed the point with your cynical attitude! What I am advocating is that the need to make a will is not something that can just be given the casual approach you favour. What is happening now is that the time bombs are ticking for the many couples who choose not to marry that has become much more common that it was fifty year ago. You only have to look on the forum and others to see how many people are paying the penalty for their lack of knowledge. It is certainly a subject that final year students aged 17 or 18 can clearly understand, and retain the knowledge, along with life skills they need. Lots of misery caused by the failure to understand the consequences of not marrying could be avoided.

securityguy

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

It is certainly a subject that final year students aged 17 or 18 can clearly understand, and retain the knowledge, along with life skills they need. .

I'm never sure what people who advocate for "financial education" want. "Make a will, it saves problems later" is the topic for 10 minutes in assembly or form time. The idea that you can, or should, teach detailed knowledge about estate planning to 17 year olds is farcical: by the time the skills are needed, it's forgotten and out of date, and anyway that's what you pay a solicitor to advise on. One could even gently point out that giving financial advice is a regulated activity...

Like a lot of financial education proposals, the time wasted teaching it badly (how many qualified teachers do you think there are? Bearing in mind the pension mis-selling scandal hit school teachers particularly hard, how skilled do you think they are themselves?) is time in which other (ie, private) schools would be teaching A Level content. State schools have been increasingly burdened with teaching non-subjects badly ("citizenship", for example) while at the same time the heads complain their students can't get into good universities. Perhaps if they spent a bit more time on maths and a bit less time on whatever this year's fashionable nostrum is, they might get the grades they need.

You only have to look on the forum and others to see how many people are paying the penalty for their lack of knowledge

No, the people who haven't written wills are not paying any penalty: they are dead. The problem is people who are reliant on people who haven't written wills, and that's a much more complex social issue to solve.

Lots of misery caused by the failure to understand the consequences of not marrying could be avoided.

Yes, nothing says "success" like proposals to have schools intervene in morality. For every couple where being unmarried impacts them later in life because of inheritance issues, there is another couple for whom being married would be a way to ramp up financial control and abuse. A school which said "no, don't live with your 21 year old girlfriend after university, you must get married immediately" would be laughed to scorn, and properly so.

Newly_retired

Many years ago, in a state school in a deprived area, I once had the opportunity to teach whatever I fancied to a class of girls, simply because there were too many of them for the cookery room. I taught basic life skills, including how to write a letter, how to budget and manage money, and we also discussed how to approach some of life's big decisions.
In actual fact, out of a list of about 12 names, attendance was normally 5 or 6, different ones each week, as the others were either truanting, or had to look after a younger sibling or even a parent who was ill.
I have to say the girls were amazed at what they learned in these lessons, never having heard the like before, but what good it did them, I shall never know.
And that, in all my years of teaching, is the closest I have ever come to thinking that lessons in life skills was useful. The rest could get such skills from their parents or find out, or not, in their own way, at a time when they needed to know. It has never been part of the curriculum.
Apologies for the digression.