Told father didn't leave will? How do I find out if he did?

p1psqueak

Hi
My father died 21 years ago and we're not sure if he left a will or not. My mother says he didn't, yet she's still living in the house they bought together in 1962. How do I find out whether he left a will? We are not sure which solicitor he had either...
Thank you in advance for any advice.

Keep_pedalling

Why are you doubting your mother? Many people (>50%) do not make wills, and even for those who do, only those that go through probate will be made a public record.

You can look for probate records on the following link, but if he did make a will there will be nothing to find.

Which part of the UK was he residing in at the time of his death?

MovingForwards

England and Wales
https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate

Scotland
https://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/taking-action/frequently-asked-questions/your-questions-on-dealing-with-a-deceased's-estate

p1psqueak

Keep_pedalling said:

Why are you doubting your mother? Many people (>50%) do not make wills, and even for those who do, only those that go through probate will be made a public record.

You can look for probate records on the following link, but if he did make a will there will be nothing to find.

Which part of the UK was he residing in at the time of his death?

My father was an older father with two young children. A very belt-and-braces man, so that's why I'm doubtful about his will. He was residing in Bath at the time of his death.

Keep_pedalling

Sorry forgot to add the link.

https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate

It might have been wise in his situation to make will to protect his children in the event of his wife remarrying, but the people who do this are in a small minority.

if his estate mainly consisted of the house and was owned as joint remnants then it would automatically pass to the survivor, so it is quite possible he thought making a will was not important. Might also be worth checking the land registry to check ownership of the house.

Residing in England means children do not have an automatic claim on movable assets as they would in Scotland.

Marcon

p1psqueak said:

Hi
My father died 21 years ago and we're not sure if he left a will or not. My mother says he didn't, yet she's still living in the house they bought together in 1962. 

Why is that a surprise? It was common for husbands and wives to own their homes as joint tenants both at the time they bought it and when your father died 21 years ago, so she would automatically have inherited the house.

p1psqueak said:

How do I find out whether he left a will? We are not sure which solicitor he had either...

No guarantee he used a solicitor even if he did make a will - and why do you doubt your mother? Given the generation to which your parents belong(ed), leaving everything to the spouse would have been the most likely content of a will even if one existed.

I wonder why you're enquiring now, several decades after the event. Has something come to light to make you question matters?

doodling

Hi,

There is no reliable way of finding out whether someone left a will.  You have the following options to confirm that a will existed:

1. Find a probate record.
2. Find the will.
3. Get confirmation from a reliable source that a will existed (e.g. the solicitor who drafted it).  Note that in this case, you may be able to convince someone that a will existed but unless you can produce it then you have very little chance of its  supposed contents having any standing.

Note that there is no reasonable way to prove that a will doesn't exist.

What makes you think that you are being misled?  If the house was held as Joint Tenants then practically very little administration would have been required on your father's death, the existence of a will wouldn't make much difference.

I assume you have checked the land registry to confirm who owns the house?

p1psqueak

Marcon said:

I wonder why you're enquiring now, several decades after the event. Has something come to light to make you question matters?

Yes.

I'm enquiring now, several decades after the event, because a friend's mother has recently died - 22 years after her father died- and her solicitor is asking to see her father's will to "prove" he left her mother his half of his estate. As you have mentioned, my mother would automatically inherit my father's half of his estate when he died in 2000. This is what I've always believed. Now my friend telling me this has made me doubt everything, hence my question.

Mojisola

p1psqueak said:

I'm enquiring now, several decades after the event, because a friend's mother has recently died - 22 years after her father died- and her solicitor is asking to see her father's will to "prove" he left her mother his half of his estate.

As you have mentioned, my mother would automatically inherit my father's half of his estate when he died in 2000. This is what I've always believed. Now my friend telling me this has made me doubt everything, hence my question.

There are two ways to own a house - as 'joint tenants' or 'tenants in common'.

If your parents owned it as joint tenants, they both owned all the property.  When your Dad died, your mother still owned all the property.  Your father couldn't leave it in his will as it wouldn't have been part of his estate.

If they owned it as tenants in common, each of them owned a specific percentage - usually 50/50, but not necessarily.  In this case, the percentage owned by your father would have been part of his estate.

xylophone

and her solicitor is asking to see her father's will to "prove" he left her mother his half of his estate.

If father made a will and it was probated, this won't be a problem.

Marcon

p1psqueak said:

Marcon said:

I wonder why you're enquiring now, several decades after the event. Has something come to light to make you question matters?

Yes.

I'm enquiring now, several decades after the event, because a friend's mother has recently died - 22 years after her father died- and her solicitor is asking to see her father's will to "prove" he left her mother his half of his estate. As you have mentioned, my mother would automatically inherit my father's half of his estate when he died in 2000. This is what I've always believed. Now my friend telling me this has made me doubt everything, hence my question.

Assuming this is England or Wales...(is it?)

A house and an estate are different things. If the house was jointly owned, and bank/savings account were in joint names, then they would automatically pass to your mother. Once these are taken out of the equation, it is highly likely that the remaining assets would have fallen within the limit for what is known under the rules of intestacy as a 'statutory legacy' - which I think was £450,000 at the time your father died.

I suspect your friend's solicitor is making the necessary checks to ensure how much (or more accurately how little!) IHT needs to be paid. If there was a will, and it went to probate, it's easy: the solicitor just needs to check that to see if anything was left to anyone other than the spouse and if so, what %age of the IHT nil rate band was used up. If there was a will, it doesn't mean that it went to probate - probate might not have been needed if everything was in joint names.

The same could apply to your mother's situation and she has quite simply (and genuinely) forgotten what happened.

I think this would make helpful (and reassuring) reading for you, especially if your mother owns a valuable property: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/inheritance-tax-transfer-of-threshold#overview