Inheritance Hidden From Me By Family Members

GDB2222

Ty66ty said:

GDB2222 said:

TBagpuss said:

When my aunt died a few years ago, her executor (her son, my cousin) simply wrote to me, sending me a cheque. I never saw the will, and he didn’t ask for ID.  

Am I to assume there was no solicitor involved and if one is involved they issue the cheques?

I think my cousin did it all. 

The bequest from my aunt was very nice, as it was really sweet of her to think of me. I wasn't expecting anything at all. 

tooldle

Ty66ty said:

There's no way I've forgotten. None. At first I thought it was a possibility. Even though deep down I knew it wasn't. But you have to look at these things logically. It was nearly 20 years ago. But as I've pieced things together. There's no way I've forgotten.

tooldle said:

Cheques don’t come directly after probate. The estate has first to be settled, bills paid, property sold if instructed, etc. Only when that is complete is it ok to distribute the proceeds in accordance with the will, assuming there is enough to cover what is stipulated. 

 
There was a property which had to be sold. Can this process start before probate or can it only start after?

People can and do forget a surprising number of things  Before you yell fraud at your relatives, at least check you have not forgotten. If you are looking at it logically, you will indeed check. Assuming, is not logical.

theoretica

Ty66ty said:

I know I have a very slim chance of it getting anywhere. But for my own piece of mind I have to give it the best go I can.

There's been a lot of good advice given to me here and thank you for that.

There's just one thing more if I may so I am clear on the will process after someone has died.

A person dies. I'm assuming the beneficiaries are then formally contacted by the Executor to say they are in the will and possibly given a copy? What is bequeathed to the beneficiaries is then given to them after the will has been registered with the probate office?

So in my case. My nan dies. Me, my brother and the main beneficiary are connected to say we are in the will and possibly a copy of the will is sent. My mum contest's the will which delays probate for 2 and a half years. Once the probate is granted the cheques are sent out to me and my brother.

I'm assuming a beneficiary doesn't just get a cheque come in the post with no prior knowledge after someone dies?

My recollection is that when my great aunt left me a fixed sum the cheque did just appear in the post with a receipt for me to sign, and no copy of the will - because I had been left £1000 and was getting that £1000 the rest of the will was none of my business.  When I inherited a % of my grandparents estate I had much more paperwork - was sent a copy of the will at some stage, and accounts.  But as you were left a fixed sum a cheque turning up in the post with a covering letter may be all that was sent.

JJWSJS8700

Murdina said:

As others have said, the solicitor would not have been able to "close" accounts/administration of the estate unless all the money was paid out and cleared. More likely a cheque was intercepted and paid in.

I recently dealt with my late father's estate and it struck me how gobsmackingly easy it would be not to pay out to beneficiaries who were otherwise oblivious to the terms of the will. A solicitor of course would abide by the will but it is quite possible to administer an estate without one. I would advise anyone who remotely thinks they might be the beneficiary of a will but doesn't seem to have been contacted by the executors a year or so after the death to do a search of probate records. There is a small fee.

Was the Estate that you were dealing with, the Will was not listed on Gov probate website/OR it was below the bank threshold so they pay out without probate?

JJWSJS8700

Ty66ty said:

Thank you both for your replies. I'm a he not a she 😉

The solicitor is the Executor. He can't or won't tell me anything about the payment. All he claims to have is a spreadsheet which names me, my brother, the amount mentioned in the will and two dates. He can't or won't say if the payment was made and if so whether by cheque or bank transfer. He is assuming that it was a cheque and that it was paid to me because they have a system in place if cheques aren't cashed.

At the time of the will I was living at a different address than on the will. He would have had no more contact details for me than that. What is odd is the date on the spreadsheet for me is two weeks before my brothers date. This rightly or wrongly makes me assume someone cashed my cheque first. Waited to see if they had gotten away with it. If they hadn't they would have used my brothers cheque as some sort of excuse for the mix up, if questions were asked. Then my brother cashed his cheque. As I said it was a small town where we were all well known in the one bank and one building society we had all used for decades. It would have been very easy to explain and be believed about a  'mistake'.

What is also suspicious to me about my date being first is how could it have been? The only contact details were at the address my brother and father lived. How could I have possibly found out the inheritance before my brother? My brother is also saying I cashed the cheque before him and he rang me some weeks later to tell me about the inheritance. I can't possibly have known before him. So he's obviously lying. Why lie about that? You only do that if you have something to hide. Initially I thought it was my dad and brother. Events over the last few days have lead me to think it's my mum and brother. Possibly my dad as well. It's all fishy and stinks. They're all lying so clearly they're all hiding something.

Sorry, I'm going on a bit. As you can imagine it grates a bit. Back to the point. I have no knowledge of accounting and how records are kept in regard to wills. But if the solicitor still has some form of records then surely end of year accounting will either show a plus amount of 5k or not. If not it was cashed. If it's still showing then it wasn't.

If I start action against the Executor I'm assuming after the letter before action it would be via the small claims court?

The Legal Ombudsman only entertain you IF you are a beneficiary and/or Executor and deal with the service received from the solicitor.

Contact them it’s simple and free but long with backlogs.

You must show them your letter of complaint and have given them 8 weeks to respond.

p00hsticks

Ty66ty said:

There's no way I've forgotten. None. At first I thought it was a possibility. Even though deep down I knew it wasn't. But you have to look at these things logically. It was nearly 20 years ago. But as I've pieced things together. There's no way I've forgotten.

tooldle said:

Cheques don’t come directly after probate. The estate has first to be settled, bills paid, property sold if instructed, etc. Only when that is complete is it ok to distribute the proceeds in accordance with the will, assuming there is enough to cover what is stipulated. 

 
There was a property which had to be sold. Can this process start before probate or can it only start after?

The house can go on the market before probate but the executor will need the grant of probate in order to have the authority to actually exchange and complete on the sale.

mjm3346

Ty66ty said:

GDB2222 said:

TBagpuss said:

When my aunt died a few years ago, her executor (her son, my cousin) simply wrote to me, sending me a cheque. I never saw the will, and he didn’t ask for ID.  

Am I to assume there was no solicitor involved and if one is involved they issue the cheques?

We had a solicitor involved with the probate side of things (they were not an executor) and they had nothing to do with releasing any of the funds for funeral expenses, bequests etc.

Have you checked to see if there is any online record of the will?


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

GDB2222

p00hsticks said:

Ty66ty said:

There's no way I've forgotten. None. At first I thought it was a possibility. Even though deep down I knew it wasn't. But you have to look at these things logically. It was nearly 20 years ago. But as I've pieced things together. There's no way I've forgotten.

tooldle said:

Cheques don’t come directly after probate. The estate has first to be settled, bills paid, property sold if instructed, etc. Only when that is complete is it ok to distribute the proceeds in accordance with the will, assuming there is enough to cover what is stipulated. 

 
There was a property which had to be sold. Can this process start before probate or can it only start after?

The house can go on the market before probate but the executor will need the grant of probate in order to have the authority to actually exchange and complete on the sale.

That’s true generally, but the house may possibly have been registered as a joint tenancy, in which case the joint tenant inherited immediately on nan's death.

molerat

Things are likely dealt with a bit differently now.  MrsM has recently received a letter from a solicitor with a photocopy of the will and a form to complete acknowledging receipt, correct contact details and how she would like to be paid. 

Maybe they are just covering all bases as they were the ones who dealt with his affairs and the will has just turned up following the relatives death in 2015.  At the funeral his late wife's family, who were caring for him, strangely stated that there was no money as it had all been spent on care fees.  On the phone the solicitor stated there is around £180K to distribute

Fishy things going on me thinks, maybe they had the hump because the will left the house to them and everything else to be distributed, the house was sold when he went into care !

Ty66ty

Murdina said:

As others have said, the solicitor would not have been able to "close" accounts/administration of the estate unless all the money was paid out and cleared. More likely a cheque was intercepted and paid in.

Is the account held open indefinitely? Or if there is a time limit, how long is it and where does the money go?