Can our Step mother overturn a Right to Occupy to a Life Interest?

xylophone

He advised us on the day of our father's funeral that the wording of our father's will is a Right to Occupy NOT life interest. I believe from an email he sent yesterday that he has advised our step mother of this.

Then he has given you his legal opinion.

as our step mother has emailed him about her IHT position giving financial information to him and he is now left in a conflict of interests and has stated that he or his company can not act on our behalf or advise us in this matter and that we seek alternative legal advice!!!!!  Do we have the right to ask him to provide us with any notes made when my father did the codicil? I can only imagine the Right to Occupy was discussed or maybe it wasn't? 

He has not agreed to act for the stepmother and you are still his clients. In my opinion he should have advised the stepmother that he could not assist her as it would be a conflict of interest!

The executors of the will to which he drafted the codicil seem to me to have the right to see the notes. However, I cannot see that they would be material to the issue as the codicil had no effect on the Right to Abode clause.

The executors can seek another opinion if they feel they are going to need to fight the case and can take the money to pay for it from estate funds.

But to my mind, you have already had a legal opinion and from what you have quoted from the will, your stepmother has no right to demand that the executors buy her another house after  she ceases to occupy your father's house as her principal residence.

saz67

Thank you so much for your advice. I agree with all your comments. I will make some calls on Monday. 

xylophone

your advice.

Not advice- posters are not permitted to give it!

A communication from the stepmother's solicitor to  the exors' solicitor would have been in order - the exors' solicitor would then have taken instruction from the clients and replied.

I am not sure that he should have been in personal discussion with her about the  will clause, particularly when he knew that there was likely to be some contention.

Similarly, when she wrote to him mentioning her own financial affairs, it seems to me that he should have responded that he was unable to comment or communicate further as there was a potential conflict of interest.

I suppose he would now say that he cannot unread her message about her financial affairs - that is clearly true. But he should not have engaged with her in the first place?

saz67

In that case thank you for your thoughts