Not contacted as beneficiary, what to expect ?

tooldle

If the house is for sale, who is selling it? If the executors are selling on behalf of the estate then distribution of assets can't have been finalised. I appreciate the sale could be secondary ie. being sold by a person who previously purchased if from the estate. 

sienew

You need to contact the executors of the will. It doesn't sound like the solicitors in question are the executors so probably can't help you much.

doodling

Hi,

It sounds like the solicitors were not the executors so they will (in general) work as instructed by the executor(s).  That means that they could choose to do nothing and ignore your partner - your partner isn't their client and they probably don't owe her anything (unless they have colluded in something obviously illegal, but that would be extremely unusual).

Hopefully, from what they have said, they will do more than the nothing they are obliged to do and contact the executor(s) to ask what action they want them to take (probably with an eye to getting more money out of the executor for their trouble :-).  The executors might tell the solicitors to do nothing, in which case you may not get any response at all or they might tell the solicitors to do something out of a whole range of possibilities.

Rather than talking to the solicitors, your partner is probably best off writing a letter(s) to the executor(s) noting that they have seen that their grandmother has passed away, that the will has gone to probate, that they have been left a bequest and asking when it might be paid.

The next step would depend on what response, if any, was received from that letter to the executors.

Flugelhorn

@doodling I think this is likely to be the outcome, the solicitor will probably contact the executor to alert them / ask them what to do - if the family say "no problem, we'll sort it" the solicitor will just leave it at that - they don't want to be in the middle of a family row.
Pity for once that the sol isn't the exec as if they had made an error they would have probably paid up 

Marcon

Sounds like a case for making an application for Inventory and Account. See https://sintons.co.uk/personal-family-probate/inventory-and-account/ for an explanation of what this is - likely to be the best way forward if the solicitors don't come back with anything useful. 

RAS

If the house was up for sale 6-12 months ago, you probably need to check whether it's actually sold? Even if it has, there's no guarantee that the estate has been finalised if is includes things like stocks and shares.

lincroft1710

tooldle said:

If the house is for sale, who is selling it? If the executors are selling on behalf of the estate then distribution of assets can't have been finalised. I appreciate the sale could be secondary ie. being sold by a person who previously purchased if from the estate. 

RAS said:

If the house was up for sale 6-12 months ago, you probably need to check whether it's actually sold? Even if it has, there's no guarantee that the estate has been finalised if is includes things like stocks and shares.

According to OP's first post, the solicitor they contacted confirmed that the house had been sold and the estate distributed

"So it turns out my other half is in the will (for a 4% share). We rung the solicitors involved who werent too happy to take her information to look into it but she did give away that money has all been paid out, house had been sold etc", 

tooldle

lincroft1710 said:

tooldle said:

If the house is for sale, who is selling it? If the executors are selling on behalf of the estate then distribution of assets can't have been finalised. I appreciate the sale could be secondary ie. being sold by a person who previously purchased if from the estate. 

RAS said:

If the house was up for sale 6-12 months ago, you probably need to check whether it's actually sold? Even if it has, there's no guarantee that the estate has been finalised if is includes things like stocks and shares.

According to OP's first post, the solicitor they contacted confirmed that the house had been sold and the estate distributed

"So it turns out my other half is in the will (for a 4% share). We rung the solicitors involved who werent too happy to take her information to look into it but she did give away that money has all been paid out, house had been sold etc", 

It was the rest of the paragraph that lead me to question this, the bit you’ve not quoted that says ‘as far as they were aware’. Didn’t sound very definitive to me. 

lincroft1710

tooldle said:

lincroft1710 said:

tooldle said:

If the house is for sale, who is selling it? If the executors are selling on behalf of the estate then distribution of assets can't have been finalised. I appreciate the sale could be secondary ie. being sold by a person who previously purchased if from the estate. 

RAS said:

If the house was up for sale 6-12 months ago, you probably need to check whether it's actually sold? Even if it has, there's no guarantee that the estate has been finalised if is includes things like stocks and shares.

According to OP's first post, the solicitor they contacted confirmed that the house had been sold and the estate distributed

"So it turns out my other half is in the will (for a 4% share). We rung the solicitors involved who werent too happy to take her information to look into it but she did give away that money has all been paid out, house had been sold etc", 

It was the rest of the paragraph that lead me to question this, the bit you’ve not quoted that says ‘as far as they were aware’. Didn’t sound very definitive to me. 

The part of the post you quoted actually said "so they considered it "case closed" on all matters as far as they [the solicitors]were aware", which does not appear to cast any doubt that the house was sold, simply that the solicitors were of the opinion there was nothing more for them to do. 

tooldle

lincroft1710 said:

tooldle said:

lincroft1710 said:

tooldle said:

If the house is for sale, who is selling it? If the executors are selling on behalf of the estate then distribution of assets can't have been finalised. I appreciate the sale could be secondary ie. being sold by a person who previously purchased if from the estate. 

RAS said:

If the house was up for sale 6-12 months ago, you probably need to check whether it's actually sold? Even if it has, there's no guarantee that the estate has been finalised if is includes things like stocks and shares.

According to OP's first post, the solicitor they contacted confirmed that the house had been sold and the estate distributed

"So it turns out my other half is in the will (for a 4% share). We rung the solicitors involved who werent too happy to take her information to look into it but she did give away that money has all been paid out, house had been sold etc", 

It was the rest of the paragraph that lead me to question this, the bit you’ve not quoted that says ‘as far as they were aware’. Didn’t sound very definitive to me. 

The part of the post you quoted actually said "so they considered it "case closed" on all matters as far as they [the solicitors]were aware", which does not appear to cast any doubt that the house was sold, simply that the solicitors were of the opinion there was nothing more for them to do. 

Yes, as far as they were aware, leaving the potential for matters not to have been tied up and the house sale not completed. As the OP has not said who handled the sale, we as readers cannot be certain, hence my question. Doesn’t look like the OP will be back though.