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Underhand manipulation of a will and estate

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I am in desperate need of some advice.
My Father passed away in 2014 and my Mother in April this year.
Through their lives their wish and will were that everything be split equally between myself and my elder sister.
In late 2014, not long after dad passed, my mum became ill with a rare and debilitating illness which'd only ever deteriorate.
My sister gave up her job as she could afford to do so and was going to take early retirement a year later anyway. She moved up to look after mum during the week and I took over at the weekend so that she could get ready to sell her house.
At the start of mum's illness she was already incapable of writing and had a pre-printed stamp to sign documents.
My sister was executor of the will and had power of attorney with full authority to use the bank account for the required funds to pay bills, cost of carers etc.
Some time after moving up there to help she, somehow, managed to get a letter to the solicitor, supposedly agreed to by mum, which changed the will so that all I will receive only £5,000.
There is no way mum would have agreed to anything of the sort but, furthermore, she managed to get the house transferred into her name about a year ago. This, supposedly, was to cut down on the cost of carers who came in 4 times a day for the 2 and a half years until mum passed away and I was told that this cost around £1,000 a month, which is similar to the pension mum received from dad's very long work at Kodak. She also said that this was still being paid up until the time passed away, which I now doubt as there was no collateral left to take into account for the carers costs.
I am not sue the value of the house but it is in a little village called Thursford, Norfolk and is a 3 bedroomed bungalow so would have a wild guess that it's somewhere between £200-300,000.
Also at the time mum became ill there was between £50,000 and £60,000 in her savings account which my sister took from to make house improvements including roof repairs, garage roof repairs and, strangely a full set of double-glazing and doos throughout the property. I was led to believe that these were in order to up the value of the property for when i became available to sell once mum had gone.
I contacted a no-win, no-fee solicitor to enquire about contesting the will (Which to this point still hasn't been read and funds are not yet released) and they took the case until discovering that the house had been transferred a year ago, was no longer part of the estate and so they weren't going to make any money out of it.
On top of my weekly visits I also covered my sister for 2 expensive holidays to Africa in 2016 and Japan for 2 weeks earlier this year.
I also contributed (not a huge amount) to some expenses to help out my sister who was pleading near poverty while looking after mum .
In October last year I was unable to continue to go up there as I had a big toe amputated, followed by the second toe on the same foot and developed a secondary complication causing me excrutiating pain which I was still suffering when I covered her holiday in February. I was told that the second to needed to be amputated the day before she went to Japan and felt I could not let her down so put it off until she returned and had to go to the nearby surgery where mum lived to have it redressed 4 times while I was up there. With the foot problems I sustained £6,000 loss of wages over a six month period and a lot of unpaid days off.
My sister sold her house in October a couple of weeks after I was unable to go up any more so received, again at a guess, probably around £250,000 for the property with no offer of assistance whatsoever
I have also been forced out of my rented accommodation that I have lived in for 11 years because the owners wanted it back and have had to borrow over £3,000 in order to move into another property and have also got debts of around £7,000 on top of that so the small amont that my sister is telling me won't even cover half my debts and will be in considerable debt that would not be the case if I were to receive what should have been rightfully mine when probate is released and the will is finalised.
Please can anyone offer me help in what I can do to get what I should do.
Many thanks,
Neil
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Comments

  • haras_nosirrah
    haras_nosirrah Posts: 2,208 Forumite
    if your mum was unable to write before the will was drafted to the extent she just had a stamp and your sister took a stamped letter to the solicitor I would maybe ask the solicitor what evidence they have that it was your mum who wanted the change rather than your sister writing the letter and borrowing the stamp. Did they speak to mum to ensure that it was her wishes? That would possibly be a good starting point
    I am a Mortgage Adviser
    You should note that this site doesn't check my status as a Mortgage Adviser, so you need to take my word for it. This signature is here as I follow MSE's Mortgage Adviser Code of Conduct. Any posts on here are for information and discussion purposes only and shouldn't be seen as financial advice.
  • Neil_Cox
    Neil_Cox Posts: 5 Forumite
    My sister had the letter witnessed by the neighbours, exactly what was witnessed I'm not sure as they moved in November and, until the probate is released, I am avoiding contact with my sister for obvious reasons.
    Not having reason to expect this bombshell I, also, do not know the solicitor handling the affairs.
  • Neil_Cox
    Neil_Cox Posts: 5 Forumite
    I beg your pardon Yorkshireman?
  • Yorkshireman99
    Yorkshireman99 Posts: 5,470 Forumite
    Nothing to do with your post! The system does not allow short messages so I just held a key down.
  • Neil_Cox
    Neil_Cox Posts: 5 Forumite
    Yes, I've already noticed that too :-)
  • Yorkshireman99
    Yorkshireman99 Posts: 5,470 Forumite
    You could also enter a caveat against the will.
  • getmore4less
    getmore4less Posts: 46,882 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper I've helped Parliament
    Nothing to do with your post! The system does not allow short messages so I just held a key down.

    only need 10 chars or use the delete option.
  • Hello Neil
    What a horrible situation! Greed in family members after a death is disgusting. I was executor to my Dad's will in 2015 and was horrified how my 2 younger siblings acted.
    Your words raised a number of questions to me.
    Surely your Mum would have had to make a new will to reduce how much she left you? You can't attach a letter to an existing will.
    House sale prices are easy to check on rightmove.co.uk so you could look up similar homes to your Mum's in the same area or 'phone a couple of estate agents in the area for an approximate value. You can see if your sister did change your Mum's house into her sole name by looking on the Land Registry website for I think a £2.00 fee. Would she not have had to use a solicitor to do that? If carers were involved the council are not going to let the removal of the asset (your Mum's house) be put in your sisters name, they would still want the cost of the carers refunded. They may have put a 'charge' on the house? You can also see how much your sister sold hers for.
    Your Mum would surely have received a widows pension from Kodak? Your sister could have received a carer's allowance if she was living with your Mum as her carer? Sister would have had no living costs herself.
    Surely, when probate has been done it is too late to challenge a will?
    I am not a solicitor but these points immedietly struck me when reading your story. You need to see a solicitor or the very least go to Citizen's Advice straight away! Good luck.
  • Neil_Cox
    Neil_Cox Posts: 5 Forumite
    Thank you for your reply Smiley Lady,
    Apparently my Mum sent a letter to the solicitor to change the will shortly after my Dad passed away in 2014. Amazingly that was around the time Mum became ill and my sister moved up there.
    Basically she's had the plan mapped out from the moment she moved up there.
    I know that both the will and transfer of the house had to be witnessed before they could be done but I'm not sure how she managed to manipulate the witnesses yet.
    The value of my sister's property isn't relevant to the will or estate, I just mentioned in in frustration of her malicious greed in this horrible situation.
    I will be going to the CAB for advice I just haven't had a chance yet with everything else that's been going on. Move, hospital at least once a week and working nights, not a great combination :-)
  • paddy's_mum
    paddy's_mum Posts: 3,977 Forumite
    I've been Money Tipped!
    You may want to edit your post to remove some of the information which makes it very easy to identify your sister and the larger family.

    No point in tipping off a potential 'enemy' if you don't need to. :o
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