Am I entitled to anything from my late fathers estate?

JonnyMC

I was born in January 1967 to married parents.
My mother left my father (and eventually divorced him) in approximately 1976 or 1977 and my younger brother and I went with my mother to live with a man who was to become our step father
My younger brother (now deceased) and I continued to see my father once a week until around 1982 when we stopped seeing our father altogether (I am not quite sure why)
I have not seen my father since.
Soon after my mother left him, my father married a lady who already had 2 girls from a previous marriage and then had 3 sons with her (One of those sons passed away a few years ago)
My father ran a hotel while he was alive and the hotel is now being run by my half brother and his wife (who I have no contact with).
My father passed away on the 6th Nobember 2015.
I have searched on the https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate website but I cannot find any record of a will being made.
I would hazard a guess that the current value of the hotel is well over £500,000
What I would like to know is, as his eldest son, I am entitled to any share of his estate or the hotel?
Thanks for any replies.

Caz3121

if no will then would follow intestacy rules
https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will

comeandgo

Which country was he in? 

Robin9

Did he own the hotel  or just manage it?

74jax

Did he own the hotel with his wife?  Did his wife own it? 

Brynsam

JonnyMC said:

I was born in January 1967 to married parents.
My mother left my father (and eventually divorced him) in approximately 1976 or 1977 and my younger brother and I went with my mother to live with a man who was to become our step father
My younger brother (now deceased) and I continued to see my father once a week until around 1982 when we stopped seeing our father altogether (I am not quite sure why)
I have not seen my father since.
Soon after my mother left him, my father married a lady who already had 2 girls from a previous marriage and then had 3 sons with her (One of those sons passed away a few years ago)
My father ran a hotel while he was alive and the hotel is now being run by my half brother and his wife (who I have no contact with).
My father passed away on the 6th Nobember 2015.
I have searched on the https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate website but I cannot find any record of a will being made.
I would hazard a guess that the current value of the hotel is well over £500,000
What I would like to know is, as his eldest son, I am entitled to any share of his estate or the hotel?
Thanks for any replies.

Your status as 'eldest son' won't impact on any right to inherit but equally, it doesn't confer any special, automatic right to anything over and above other siblings/half-siblings.

The website you cite only shows wills where probate has been granted. There may have been a will but probate wasn't needed, in which case the document will never become public. Probably your only way to find out what happened is to contact your half brother and ask. Is it possible that they've tried to contact you and had no contact information?

Malthusian

Even under intestacy, there are a number of scenarios in which you would legally inherit nothing:

• The wife owned the hotel
• They owned the hotel or business jointly, and the wife automatically became sole owner on death
  
• His estate was worth less than £250k, in which case under intestacy the wife gets everything; even if he owned part of the hotel business, it might be worth less than £250k due to debt finance
  

If it is feasible that the executor of the Will wouldn't have been able to contact you, as Brynsam says I would send a message to the half brother and say tactfully that you want to check whether you are due anything from the estate. Otherwise I would forget it. Unless you have clear evidence that the executors distributed the estate wrongly.

If the hotel was owned via a limited company the ownership details and some information about its value will be in the public record via Companies House.

My younger brother (now deceased) and I continued to see my father once a week until around 1982 when we stopped seeing our father altogether (I am not quite sure why)

Well, you knew where he was (the hotel), and you were too old at 15 years of age to be physically prevented from seeing him, so the obvious reason is that you didn't feel like it. Nothing wrong with that.