Will My Husband Ever Find Out If His Father Died?

BrassicWoman

If she isn’t getting the grades uni may not be the best place...has she looked at degree level apprenticeships outside of Scotland? The landscape has changed a lot in the last 24 months.

richardw

Perhaps your husband should look for his Dad and if found, go from there.

SevenOfNine

Slim chance perhaps, but have you thought of checking the council tax register in the last known areas of FiL & SiL? It's possible to opt out of the public viewing part, but you never know.

Sounds like financially you're stuck between a rock & a hard place. but TBH it sounds as if the chances that either of your in-laws will suddenly help fund your daughter are, at best, slim even if you could find them.

You have been estranged for some years, unless FiL died with no Will & SiL kept the lot, the chance that £££ could be sourced there are also slim. If FiL had a Will before, it may be odds on that he updated it when his wife died in favour of SiL anyway.

I'm not sure the debt of uni is going to help, though you want the best chances for your daughter of course, you have a lot of reasons why she & your husband can't find work that would leave much of an income after travel expenses, but perhaps 'not much' is better than the current state of nothing at all?

I hope things work out for you, but sadly it seems you may have to rethink your daughters further education. No-one on your side of the family to help out?

TonyMMM

Unless you can find someone local who is going to let you know, then you would need to regularly check the General Register Office indexes of deaths registered.

However, the problem is that these are only online up to 2007 - checking current registers needs a visit to one of a number of designated libraries to go through new records on microfiche.

If you are in Scotland, the nearest would probably be Newcastle City Library.

ViolaLass

If you're living in an area where there is little work and you are commuting a long way, could you move closer to your work, thus reducing your commute and hopefully increasing others' chances of getting a job?

Malthusian

fallen121 wrote: »

Our daughter is on the point of going to University and is well aware that her choices are severely constrained by our limited financial circumstances. We are probably going to have to consider selling our house to finance her education as my husband is finding it difficult to secure employment, whereas I have a job which pays just above the threshold at which she cannot get any financial assistance. It's quite cruel when you consider that her Grandparents are wealthy and made many promises which will now no longer be kept.

For all you know your father-in-law has not changed his Will, or has left a six-figure sum to your daughter, but won't die for another ten years, long after your daughter has graduated.

Or your father-in-law may have remarried and will leave everything to his new wife.

Or he may sell his house and then spend the lot on cruising round the world, leaving his heirs nothing.

As your daughter is on the verge of going to University and there's no reason to think your father-in-law would be generous enough to die within the next two years, even if he has left you or her a legacy, relying on an inheritance to fund her education was never a practical solution.

Why does she want to go to University? You haven't said what she's studying, so for all we know she may go to University, work herself to the bone for three years, and then emerge in exactly the same position as she would be now, looking for seasonal tourist jobs or dog-walking where you live, or moving to somewhere with better prospects. If she's aiming to study law or medicine then obviously that's different.

I realise this wasn't the question you came here to ask but the answer to the question "how can I find out if my husband's father has died and left lots of money to us or my daughter" doesn't help you or her. The question is "what should my daughter do when she leaves school as we think she won't be able to afford university". As often happens with questions about money, this is one of those cases where the correct question is far more useful than the correct answer.

She certainly shouldn't EXPECT to find work or base her plans on the expectation that she would because if she doesn't there's no safety net available.

Any university city has student jobs. Supermarket shifts, bar work, delivery... they may not be especially desirable and trying to juggle her studies with a part-time job may not be right for her, but anyone going to a university city can certainly expect to find work if they want it. It's steady full-time jobs and jobs in ghost towns that are difficult to find, neither of which applies to students.

Selling your house would be a bonkers idea unless there's a substantial amount of equity in it and you can comfortably downsize and buy a new house without any loss of amenity (which is rare). And you said "sell our house" not "downsize" which suggests there isn't. If your finances are tight now, how will you pay rent when neither of you can work any longer?

ClaretHead

Most reputable private investigators have Tracing Services, and will be able to find your FIL or a death certificate. They shouldn't charge more than than a couple of hundred pounds. Give them his name, last known address and any other details and they should be able to find out fairly quickly, and without you and yours getting involved.

p00hsticks

TonyMMM wrote: »

Unless you can find someone local who is going to let you know, then you would need to regularly check the General Register Office indexes of deaths registered.

You could also regularly check this site, which shows (and saves) online all the death / funeral notices placed in local newspapers throughout the UK. You can limit the search by region or newspaper if you know it

There's no guarantee that someone will put a notice in the paper, but a lot of relatives do, and if so it should show up here

https://funeral-notices.co.uk/national

CGG

Google his name, in speech marks with the word obituary and see if he has died already. Won't cost you anything.

ChasingButterflies

OP, Waiting for uni offers is an extremely anxious time for both students and parents. Last year DD1 didn’t receive any responses until the last week of March.

She rejected her Scottish offered (2/5) During the summer holidays and was half heartedly going to take a gap year, once she received her S6 results and a couple of days after clearing in England opened, she applied to 2 English uni’s and received 2 offers. She had A@ AH and AAAABBC @Higher. Her S5 grades were the same as your daughters.

She is just home from her first term away and is thriving down there, bear in mind that while there are limited opportunities for work in your current location, university town’s have far more opportunities and halls are generally available even during holidays (DD is just about to go back after a 6week Christmas break - she also has a 3 month summer break)

SAAS should fund the entire cost of fees at an English uni through a loan, but yes there is a shortfall between living costs that your daughter/ you will need to meet, but with the long holidays it is achievable.

Unfortunately for home students, places at Scottish universities isn’t about their grades unless they are an all A student, for everyone else their post code becomes a major factor. It is what it is.