Intestacy of child with estranged parent

MissAce

My friend passed away earlier this year age 41, unexpectedly and with no will in place. 

She has one living parent (one deceased) and 3 siblings.

I guess in this case that Intestacy rules apply.
The problem we have is that her living parent has been estranged from my friend since the age of 8. Her parent was utterly despised by my friend and the thought of this man inheriting anything from her estate would be a travesty.
Is there anything in law that protects her and her siblings from an estranged parent inheriting under intestacy rules?

GrumpyDil

Nope. Unfortunately not. 

Savvy_Sue

I fear not. I believe that in intestacy the nearest relative has to apply (normally), I am not sure if a sibling would be able to do this if the parent wished to do it. 

If your friend had been adopted, then that would have broken the link to both parent and siblings. 

Marcon

MissAce said:

My friend passed away earlier this year age 41, unexpectedly and with no will in place. 

She has one living parent (one deceased) and 3 siblings.

I guess in this case that Intestacy rules apply.
The problem we have is that her living parent has been estranged from my friend since the age of 8. Her parent was utterly despised by my friend and the thought of this man inheriting anything from her estate would be a travesty.
Is there anything in law that protects her and her siblings from an estranged parent inheriting under intestacy rules?

Yes: a will, and it's clearly too late for that.

One alternative is a Deed of Variation, which makes the assumption - possibly hopelessly optimistic, but in the absence of any other ideas, has to be worth a go? - that the estranged parent might be open to persuasion from the three surviving siblings. People change over the years, sometimes for the better - and if your friend hadn't been in contact with her father for well over 30 years, it is just possible....

A less formal approach is simply asking him if he'll gift whatever he would otherwise inherit to his other children. Again, it's a long shot, but who knows what response you'd get until you try? 

Mojisola

MissAce said:

My friend passed away earlier this year age 41, unexpectedly and with no will in place. 

She has one living parent (one deceased) and 3 siblings.

Do you know for sure that the parent is still alive?

Spendless

Curiosity question - In this case does 100% go to the surviving parent or does only 50% go to them and the other 50% that would have gone to the other parent, who is already deceased does that then pass to their heirs (in this case the siblings)?

Also, in trying to find out the answer, I discovered that when I put this scenario in to the Government website it gives me a different answer for Scotland, where siblings as well as parents do inherit. Have we established where the OP's friend lived?   https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will

JGB1955

AIUI £270K goes to the sole surviving parent, then 50% of the excess is shared between any surviving siblings, the other 50% being added to the sole surviving parent.

sheramber

https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will

Savvy_Sue

Mojisola said:

MissAce said:

My friend passed away earlier this year age 41, unexpectedly and with no will in place. 

She has one living parent (one deceased) and 3 siblings.

Do you know for sure that the parent is still alive?

Yes I wondered that after I'd posted.

theoretica

Just to confirm that the friend lived and died in England?  Scotland has different rules with half to siblings.