Partner died intestate - family has taken money they’re not entitled to

Keep_pedalling

Are you a member of a trade union and/or do you have legal cover included in your home insurance?

Unfortunately a complaint to the bank is not going to get you very far. Your partner’s mother and brother are both entitled to wind up the estate and therefore close his bank accounts, and withdraw the money to pay the funeral costs and then distribute the remainder as per intestacy rules. Your partner’s mother was doing the correct thing up until the distribution part.

Keeping the money and not distributing it as a criminal offence so you may have to get the police involved.

DUTR

TBagpuss wrote: »

The child is entitled - under intestacy, children come before parents in terms of who has the right to inherit.

the fact that the child is born posthumously doesn't change that.

Can you point to documentation as such?
As things stand right now, the next of kin appears to be the parent, an unborn child doesn't count (in reality there is no child until born) and then There would have to be proof that it is the deceased's child.

unforeseen

DUTR wrote: »

Can you point to documentation as such?
As things stand right now, the next of kin appears to be the parent, an unborn child doesn't count (in reality there is no child until born) and then There would have to be proof that it is the deceased's child.

Pick a law site

https://www.google.com/search?q=intestacy+unborn+child&oq=intestacy+unborn+child&aqs=chrome..69i57.10457j0j7&client=ms-android-huawei&sourceid=chrome-mobile&ie=UTF-8

Sea_Shell

If his Mum/Brother are claiming to be the "administrators", do they get "an executors year" to deal with and distribute the estate?

alexpem

I’m not sure about the time frame they have to distribute the estate, but the brother has told me him and the family have decided the Mum is having the money so I’m just worried she has already or is going to spend it, so I want to act quickly.

I will contact citizens advice today, and see what they suggest.
Thanks for all your replies!

Sea_Shell

alexpem wrote: »

I’m not sure about the time frame they have to distribute the estate, but the brother has told me him and the family have decided the Mum is having the money so I’m just worried she has already or is going to spend it, so I want to act quickly.

I will contact citizens advice today, and see what they suggest.
Thanks for all your replies!

I can fully see why you want to jump on this as quickly as possible, based on what you've said.

I was just trying to say, that if faced with a "legal" approach, this COULD be their comeback, initially at least.

It is still very early days, and they'll be emotions running high on all sides, so they might not be thinking straight, and have said things in the heat of the moment (or meant every word!!)

Yes, they might have already spent the money!! But if your baby is due soon, try to focus on you and the baby (from a health and wellbeing point of view). Don't underestimate the stress that a protracted "legal" battle could put you all under.

Is it really worth it!! Only you can decide that.

Good luck. It is so sad that families will do this to each other for the sake of a few £££.

unholyangel

OP just a point to consider. If you didn't administer his estate, how do you know theres anything of value left after funeral expenses and debts/bills were paid? There may not be much (if any) change left from the 7k in his bank account.

Malthusian

alexpem wrote: »

I have been into the bank and spoken to the manager and they believe they haven’t done anything wrong as the mother and brother went in with a death certificate, said they were next of kin and that was it.

Make a formal complaint to the bank that they released the money to someone who was not legally entitled to it.

The mother and brother would have signed an indemnity saying that they were entitled to the funds - which they did so fraudulently.

The bank paid the money to the wrong person, and should now pay it out to the correct person, and pursue the mother and brother for their loss.

The reason why banks don't always require Grant of Probate or letters of administration over small sums like this is that if something goes wrong, they can swallow the loss. Well, it's gone wrong in this case and they have to swallow the loss. Getting it back from the mother and brother will be the bank's problem.

If the bank fails to compensate your unborn child within eight weeks of receiving your complaint, you can go to the Financial Ombudsman on their behalf.

I am not 100% certain it is going to work, but making a formal complaint is free, as is going to the Ombudsman.

By contrast, suing the family is almost certain to be futile, unless you can get them to cave in before it gets to the point of spending thousands on solicitors.

Caveat - some of the money may have been paid out correctly if it was used to pay for his funeral or his creditors. If you are going to try to claim the money on behalf of your unborn child then you will need to pay for his funeral and pay off all creditors, then invest any money left over prudently for your unborn child when they turn 18.

You should establish first whether there is actually any money left over after paying funeral costs and creditors. If there isn't then forget all of the above and just walk away. If the estate is insolvent the mother and brother have done you a favour, dealing with the creditors is now their problem.

Malthusian

(P.S. I am as surprised as many of the posters here that foeti inherit under intestacy. I find it interesting that you can have intestacy rights before you have the right to life, and I am emphatically not anti-choice.

Then again I suppose someone on death row in the USA can still inherit property (briefly) if their spouse dies or someone else leaves them money. So my confusion about someone having inheritance rights but not the right to life is solely in my own head and not in the law.

If an unmarried man dies intestate, shouldn't administrators be putting notices in the Gazette asking any sexual partners from the last ten months to come forward? Apologies to the OP for the tangent.)

MumOf2

Just just being a bit of a clever clogs - in Latin the plural of foetus is foetus (with a long 'u'). It looks like a 2nd declension noun but is 4th. Other such words are virus, impetus, census, consensus.

Anglicised plurals - foetuses (in medical literature, this is almost universally spelt without the 'o' now, even in very traditional journals), viruses, impetuses, etc.

I always knew a degree in Latin would come in useful one day!!!

MumOf2
x