Mirror Wills and Probate - only one will taken to probate?

Manxman_in_exile

Read post #39 again from getmore4less.


(I think you are still talking about both wills together and mixing them up a bit. Even though they may be mirror wills they are entirely separate and need to be dealt sequentially in the order of deaths)

getmore4less

I suspect there are relevant bits missing but can work with what you have put so far.

Grantyy wrote: »

Main extracts of Mums Will

The beneficiary means Partner

(assume this next bit is for the house)
If Beneficiary survives me for 28 days I give my share and contents to my trustees on trust for sale.
My trustees shall allow the beneficiary to reside in the property as long as he may wish and shall not take any steps to obtain sale etc
If at any time the beneficiary ceases to reside at the property or gives written content to a sale or becomes permanently incapale of residing there or dies then the beneficiaries rights under this clause shall end and my trustees shall hold any property hekld under this clause UPON TRUST to be divided between that of my children GF & Sibling who are then living and if more than one in equal shares.

(That sets up a interest in possession(IIP) trust with the remainder men the children)

_ I give all my real and personal property whatsoever and wheresoever not specifically devised or bequeathed by earlier provisions of this will to my trustees to sell upon trust to sell call in and convert into ready money all such parts of it as may not consist of ready money with absolute power to postpone sale and:
-to pay the income from the residue (my residuary estate) to my partner during his lifetime

(that sets up another IIP trust for all the other assets with income to partner for life)
- after the death of my partner to divide my Residuary estate between those of my Children GF and Sibling who survive me for a period of 28 days and if more than one in equal shares.

(remainder men the kids again)

The standard provisions of the society of trust and estate practitioners (1st edition) shall apply

Not withstanding that my partner is making a Will in similar terms to this Will he and I have agreed that this my Will and his said will are not mutual Wills and accordingly that each of us shall be free to revoke our respective Wills at anytime whether before before or after the death of the other and shall not be under any obligation or trust to dispose of any of our respective property in accordance with the terms of said Wills.

From what you have written there are 2 trusts.

1. The house with contents that the partner has a life tenancy with other break clauses.

That share of the house and contents now belongs to the kids.
(that should be fairly easy to identify and distribute, depends how detailed you want to go about the relevant contents as much of that may have been considered jointly owned anyway.)

2. The residual estate, that also now belongs to the kids.

There will be a bigger problem identifying this set of assets as what is needed is the list of those at DOD of mum and what has happened to them since.
anything that was "joint" passes by survivorship and would not be included. eg joint accounts shared items etc.

once you have that list you can decide how much of it is worth chasing, if there was a substantial amount of cash that might be worth finding out what happened as it should have been ring fenced and only the income paid to partner.


There will also be the issue of the tax returns for the trust(s).

Manxman_in_exile

Grantyy wrote: »

We know the original Will wasn't changed because we have a copy of the recent probate which attaches their sides Will but not ours, this was one of the main issues as in our eyes after speaking to the solicitor who told us our sides had not been proven that sounded as though ours is not being taken into account as only the one is attached to probate.

Apologies for posting again but I can't get the hang of multiple quotes!


Mother's will does not need to be taken account of now. It should have been followed after she died. From the earlier transcript of your telecon with solicitor she seems to be saying that it was dealt with correctly, but is unable to explain to you in terms that you understand why probate was not required.


Were the mother's wishes, as expressed in her will, followed? If they were, that's probably fine and her will is now totally irrelevant, done and dusted - finito. I will admit that I do not know what the implications are if it should have gone to probate but did not. The solicitor is saying this was not necessary(?).


Once you are satisfied about mum's will it's only her partner's will that is left to be dealt with.


I hope that helps you understand a little more what's happening. If I'm wrong others will correct me.

Manxman_in_exile

getmore4less - one thing still concerns me about the extract from mum's will.


As Grantyy has described it, it only mentions "...my children GF and sibling...". I'm probably mistaken, but if it's a mirror will shouldn't the partner's children be in there too?


Does the partner's corresponding will only mention his children in the same manner as mum's?


(ie all the residuary estate - if any - goes only to the children of the last surviving partner? Is that what they intended?)


Is that a problem or am missing something blindingly obvious?


Thanks.

getmore4less

Back to mums will who were the named executors?

getmore4less

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

getmore4less - one thing still concerns me about the extract from mum's will.


As Grantyy has described it, it only mentions "...my children GF and sibling...". I'm probably mistaken, but if it's a mirror will shouldn't the partner's children be in there too?


Does the partner's corresponding will only mention his children in the same manner as mum's?


(ie all the residuary estate - if any - goes only to the children of the last surviving partner? Is that what they intended?)


Is that a problem or am missing something blindingly obvious?


Thanks.

Subject to some other significant clause not seen yet.

in simple lay terms these mirror will say all my assets are in trust for MY kids but in the mean time the partners get full use and income from those assets.

what that means in practice is each set of kids get their parent's assets(eventually) and joint assets, the last to die kids get them.

The key here is identifying what should have been in the trusts when Mum died.

Yorkshireman99

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

getmore4less - one thing still concerns me about the extract from mum's will.


As Grantyy has described it, it only mentions "...my children GF and sibling...". I'm probably mistaken, but if it's a mirror will shouldn't the partner's children be in there too?


Does the partner's corresponding will only mention his children in the same manner as mum's?


(ie all the residuary estate - if any - goes only to the children of the last surviving partner? Is that what they intended?)


Is that a problem or am missing something blindingly obvious?


Thanks.

Theree still seems to be the underlying problem that the OP is confused about the two wills.Whilst they may be mirror will that is quite irrelevant. The two wills need to be treated just as if they had no connection. To clarify matters the OP needs to state who the executors of the first will were. Did they distribute the estate as required by the will and who were the beneficiaries? Not rocket science! Then we can consider the second will as far as executor ande beneficiaries are concerned. Al the extraneous information needs to be ignored and just the palin facts be given. Unless, and until, the OPO gives that inormation further speculation is pointless.

Grantyy

Manxman_in_exile wrote: »

Grantyy - I don't wish to cause you further confusion, but are you saying that your GF and her sibling are only mentioned as residual beneficiaries on the mother's will and that only the partner's children are mentioned as residual beneficiaries on his will? That's how I read what you posted above, but hopefully not what you meant.


(EDIT: I suppose you may mean the executors are different on each will, but the beneficiaries are the same? Sorry - but you need to be very precise in your wording to help the experts on this board help you)


AIUI, with mirror wills the only differences will be the names of the mother and her partner. Everything else (including the names of the residual beneficiaries) should be identical on both wills. If they are not, these are not mirror wills...

Manxman
Mirror wills is the term I was given by my GF so I assumed the solicitor at the time told her that, whatever the correct term as I said the only difference between the two Wills is that one has the partners children named and one has my GF's Mums children named but only the former went through probate which if they are identical didn't make sense to me why one would and one would not, that may well be down to the fact that all other assets passed to the partner so the last surviving partner passes everything aside from the property to their side, it seems a bit wrong to say whoever dies first gets the least but if thats common and how it was done we have non issue there so long as what is carried out is correct. If my GF's Mums will simply stated the property is to be split then it would have been much easier to understand to me

The property was held in trust and my GF and the elder son who are both named as executors on the cover sheet of the recent probate are also named on the land registry of the house as proprieters.
I'll be back on later to read the other comments, just a little short on time atm, as ever thanks for the help.

Manxman_in_exile

getmore4less wrote: »

Subject to some other significant clause not seen yet.

in simple lay terms these mirror will say all my assets are in trust for MY kids but in the mean time the partners get full use and income from those assets.

what that means in practice is each set of kids get their parent's assets(eventually) and joint assets, the last to die kids get them.

The key here is identifying what should have been in the trusts when Mum died.

Thanks. I've only come across the situation with mirror wills where the residuary is shared (in some way) between the children of both partners, not just to "my children".

Manxman_in_exile

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

Theree still seems to be the underlying problem that the OP is confused about the two wills.Whilst they may be mirror will that is quite irrelevant. The two wills need to be treated just as if they had no connection. To clarify matters the OP needs to state who the executors of the first will were. Did they distribute the estate as required by the will and who were the beneficiaries? Not rocket science! Then we can consider the second will as far as executor ande beneficiaries are concerned. Al the extraneous information needs to be ignored and just the palin facts be given. Unless, and until, the OPO gives that inormation further speculation is pointless.

Grantyy - I appreciate you may feel as if you're going round in circles, but the above is basically the same advice as given by getmore4less.