Any help gratefully received

Yorkshireman99

If there is a property involved in most cases probate is required. Likewise some banks require probate to release funds. Your father made a gift with reservation of the house so it gets included in the estate. From what you originally said the solicitor said you need advice then it seemed you don’t. Since you are still not sure instead of relying on advice from here you really need to ask a solicitor.

YoungBlueEyes

Yeah my appointment is on Friday. I was just trying to get a handle on things because the more websites I was looking at the more confused I was getting

getmore4less

As the gift of the house was to two people living there only 1/3 will count as gift with reservation.

Red-Squirrel_2

iammumtoone wrote: »

Your father was a very clever man putting the house in yours and your sister name beforehand, he must have suspected something like this would happen and he has spared you the grief of having to fight for the house over his will.

Clever? He sounds incredibly cruel to me. He abandoned his two older daughters as children in order to prioritise his shiny new family, and one of his last acts has basically been to do exactly the same thing to them again.

OP, can you put yourself in their shoes, how would you feel if he'd done this to you and your sister? Say he'd left the house to the older two and nothing to you to 'compensate' for not bringing them up. Would you think that was perfectly fair?

mrschaucer

What ridiculous assumptions. Allow me to make a few more. The father was taken to the cleaners by a manipulative first wife who had serial affairs and then kicked him out of the family home and got the courts to award her a huge percentage of his worth on divorce. Father then slowly started again and built up his savings over the years with his second wife. Daughters 1 and 2 have already enjoyed half the father's "worth" which came to their mother. Now they want half the "worth" that he accrued after the divorce.
Easy isn't it? We can all read what we want into the story. Please treat the OP with respect and let's not stray into the realms of judgement.

jackyann

Yes, OP is upset, and finds this confusing. I think she has been given decent advice on here, but does need legal advice as the solicitor will probe a bit more. I think that is her distress OP has overlooked some things that may be relevant, but it does seem that the advice given on here has helped her get clearer in her own mind.

I agree that it is unhelpful to make judgements about a family situation described by someone who is grieving.

YoungBlueEyes

Red-Squirrel, as tough as that would have been I would have swallowed it. Dad did walk out on them so it would be painful, but understandable.
The reason me + 4 got the house was so that (as dad saw it) all his girls had a roof over their heads. 1+2 are a good few years older than 3+4 (there's 14 years between 2+3 and I'm 40), so they have husbands, jobs, families, houses... they've made their way in the world. He left most to the ones that needed it most, it wasn't a popularity contest. Even though that's how it's now being viewed...
Wife 1 did get a decent sum on the divorce, and a percentage of his wages til she re-married, which she never did. £35 pw which only stopped when she passed away a few years ago.

I've had some great advice from here, I'm grateful to everyone who replied

Red-Squirrel_2

YoungBlueEyes wrote: »

Red-Squirrel, as tough as that would have been I would have swallowed it. Dad did walk out on them so it would be painful, but understandable.
The reason me + 4 got the house was so that (as dad saw it) all his girls had a roof over their heads. 1+2 are a good few years older than 3+4 (there's 14 years between 2+3 and I'm 40), so they have husbands, jobs, families, houses... they've made their way in the world. He left most to the ones that needed it most, it wasn't a popularity contest. Even though that's how it's now being viewed...
Wife 1 did get a decent sum on the divorce, and a percentage of his wages til she re-married, which she never did. £35 pw which only stopped when she passed away a few years ago.

I've had some great advice from here, I'm grateful to everyone who replied

You're 40? So all of you are well into adulthood and should be financially independent barring exceptional circumstances, right? I assumed the younger two were maybe early twenties.

Savvy_Sue

YoungBlueEyes wrote: »

Dad's first wife died a couple of years ago, long after their divorce. Mum died 22 years ago, whilst she and dad were still married.
Could that have a bearing?

So 1 and 2 might have received an inheritance from their mother, Dad's first wife, which presumably 3 and 4 would NOT have done. And 3 and 4 may have had some inheritance from 2nd wife, which would not have extended to 1 and 2.

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

A red herring! I repeat my comments about not allowing the dissenters to bully you. Under no circumstances and over anything to the. Remind them politely that executors are not allowed to do so.

I agree it is not relevant to the current situation, but it may help 4 see that 1 and 2 may not have been as hard done by as they think, in that they may have had an inheritance from their mother.

Although logic flies out of the window in some people ...

getmore4less

Red-Squirrel wrote: »

You're 40? So all of you are well into adulthood and should be financially independent barring exceptional circumstances, right? I assumed the younger two were maybe early twenties.

It's the other way round OP(3) is one of the younger(3,4) at 40 the older two(1,2) would be in their 50's