Unmarried Uncle, no children who inherits if he doesn't make a will?

Flugelhorn

Spendless said:

thegreenone said:

Uncle F needs to write down names of his 'nieces and nephews' to whom his wishes to leave money.

@Spendless - it's Free Wills month now.

I would strongly suggest, in these circumstances, Uncle F does not DIY but yes, to state percentages to family and a set amount to the charity doing the Will work..

Thanks. Put this suggestion to Mr S, who said he had also been thinking along the same lines to tell Uncle F. Maybe if he also tells him of the potential nightmare of trying to track down Uncle J's children that aren't from marriages and establishing if Uncle J really is their father, then it might be enough to sway him into making a will. 

I think the tracking down of the children and verifying them could mean that the estate isn't settled for a long time 

getmore4less

There is the secondary issue of adoption that happened a lot.

As long as the top level of siblings can be determined that allows for initial distribution.

Mojisola

Flugelhorn said:

I think the tracking down of the children and verifying them could mean that the estate isn't settled for a long time 

And could prove very expensive.

theoretica

As I understand it, 1/6th of his estate would go to any surviving sibling.  For each deceased sibling, 1/6th would be divided among their children, legitimate and  (and grandchildren, if any child died) - but no one would inherit whose inheriting parent was alive.

And whoever puts in all the work sorting it out would get at most 1/6th - would it be worth it to them? If no one sorts it out and tracks down all the family the inheritance would go to the state. Maybe that idea would spur him to action.

Much easier to list who he wants (and knows about) or even leave it to charity.

Spendless

getmore4less said:

There is the secondary issue of adoption that happened a lot.

As long as the top level of siblings can be determined that allows for initial distribution.

I was already aware of this. Maybe naively I was thinking that this would be more likely to apply to Uncle J's children who weren't from his marriages. After your comment I realised it could just as easily apply to the children from marriages if they went on to be adopted by their respective Mums, subsequent husbands/partners. How would you even establish that? Uncle J died when his children were young, so there's every possibility.

As to who would administer such an estate. DH and his sister live geographically closest and Uncle F is closest to DH, but I can see interference from my sis in law if she considered an aspect not fair even if following the law (eg if 2 legitimate children of Uncle J turned out to have been adopted by their Mum's 2nd husband and therefore had no entitlement to inherit under intestacy laws I'm pretty certain hubby's sister would give my DH a hard time about it). The only other possibilities would be the 2 siblings of Uncle F that live in the UK and I can also see every possibility that they wouldn't follow the correct rules about Uncle J and even possibly my MIL because they wouldn't look into it correctly.

Urrggghhh, this is becoming a potentially bigger nightmare than I'd initially considered when posting about it.

A friend has also pointed out a potential issue with a couple of Neices that Uncle F wants to leave money to in a named will. Both are on benefits and likely to be on them for some time as one has health issues and the ofther is a single parent to 2 disabled children.   

theoretica

Spendless said:

getmore4less said:

There is the secondary issue of adoption that happened a lot.

As long as the top level of siblings can be determined that allows for initial distribution.

I was already aware of this. Maybe naively I was thinking that this would be more likely to apply to Uncle J's children who weren't from his marriages. After your comment I realised it could just as easily apply to the children from marriages if they went on to be adopted by their respective Mums, subsequent husbands/partners.  

If they were adopted after his death I believe they would still be eligible to inherit - just to complicate things even more!

Savvy_Sue

Spendless said:

A friend has also pointed out a potential issue with a couple of Neices that Uncle F wants to leave money to in a named will. Both are on benefits and likely to be on them for some time as one has health issues and the ofther is a single parent to 2 disabled children.   

You said house worth £120K and small amount of cash. How many nieces and nephews does Uncle mention? It may be that each share is small enough not to matter. Plus if it does put them over the savings limit  there are valid things money can be spent on without penalty.

And that would be a far smaller headache than the intestacy, from which I'd walk away, very fast ...

Spendless

theoretica said:

Spendless said:

getmore4less said:

There is the secondary issue of adoption that happened a lot.

As long as the top level of siblings can be determined that allows for initial distribution.

I was already aware of this. Maybe naively I was thinking that this would be more likely to apply to Uncle J's children who weren't from his marriages. After your comment I realised it could just as easily apply to the children from marriages if they went on to be adopted by their respective Mums, subsequent husbands/partners.  

If they were adopted after his death I believe they would still be eligible to inherit - just to complicate things even more!

Ahhh ok, so it's their status at the point thier Dad (Uncle J) died not if they were subsequently adopted. Still a tricky one to ask amongst DH's cousins as I don't believe he was in contact with all his children prior to death.

Spendless

Savvy_Sue said:

Spendless said:

A friend has also pointed out a potential issue with a couple of Neices that Uncle F wants to leave money to in a named will. Both are on benefits and likely to be on them for some time as one has health issues and the ofther is a single parent to 2 disabled children.   

You said house worth £120K and small amount of cash. How many nieces and nephews does Uncle mention? It may be that each share is small enough not to matter. Plus if it does put them over the savings limit  there are valid things money can be spent on without penalty.

And that would be a far smaller headache than the intestacy, from which I'd walk away, very fast ...

I quick reckoning based on what DH has said about the conversations he's had with Uncle F and I believe we'd be talking 11 neices/nephews allowing for the nephew who isn't officially a nephew and excluding the 2 nieces mentioned earlier. Of these 11 two live overseas.  

£120K is possibly high end of the house value and lower end would be £100K (just going on recent house sales).A guesstimate of cash in bank accounts I'd say a maximum of £10K of which around I'd think  around half would go on funeral costs.

 

Savvy_Sue

That is not an amount over which I'd want to lose sleep. As I said, there are legitimate things it can be spent on, and while I'd expect it to help, it's not going to prevent them claiming benefits long term - and if it WAS, then they'd have a really decent amount of money to set them up!