First death had to deal with. Letter of wishes??

securityguy

Tuesday Tenor is spot on. If residual beneficiaries (and in an intestate estate there will usually only being residual beneficiaries, as intestacy does not create specific legacies) choose to give things away, that is entirely their business, as either they do it as executors or they do it as beneficiaries.

In some circumstances there might be a reason to use a deed of variation (in general, if the beneficiary who would otherwise have received the legacy is likely to have an estate large enough to pay IHT if they die within the next seven years) but for items of small and mostly sentimental value the issue is theoretical as it almost certainly falls into the annual exemption.

What's being proposed here isn't in the specific case fraudulent, as no-one who would otherwise be entitled to things is being deprived of them against their will. But messing about with legal documents and claiming them to have been signed and witnessed is in general a very bad idea. It usually only becomes an offence when the documents are used, as it is quite rare for construction of a forged document to be an offence in and of itself; ie, having a will with faked witness sat in a desk drawer unused isn't an offence.

But creating false documents, even with pure intentions, is a bad idea because someone might just decide to use it. It's not perverting the course of justice because probate isn't public justice, but it is all sorts of obscure but live offences with old names like "uttering", and although the main offence is being committed by the person who actually presents the document, being a witness named on it is a very bad idea. As YM points out, it's a horrible demonstration of the weakness of the probate system that you can almost certainly get away with this sort of stuff, even in cases where the motives are not pure and people actually are being deprived of their legitimate interests. And I think suborning witnesses to sign a document they know to be false is pretty poor, even if your intentions are pure, you don't do anything bad with the document and you don't get caught.

YM and I disagree about a lot around probate, but on this occasion (aside from the precise crime, which is probably uttering a false instrument or something) I think he's dead on.

getmore4less

if she has lucid moments then just ask does she want to make the gifts now. Job done. if not they can be gifts from the beneficiaries.

chances are the rest can all be done without grant and if needed intestate is no more effort than if you had a will, it's the same forms anyway.