Inheritance theft

msb1234

Ultimately, if the deceased had been honest and declared this money he would not have been defrauding the benefits agency out of goodness knows how much. And if that had been the case, there would have been very little money in his tins under the bed to leave to anyone!

TripleH

Depending on when the pools win was, there are limited places old notes can be cashed.

The bottom line is that whilst there was once cash from a pools win, its hard to evidence that it was there on your partner's father's death. It may have been spent in many ways and if frittered away, some people can get embarrassed admitting it was squandered.

Unfortunately unless you can provide evidence it existed it might as well not have. Hearsay is sadly insufficient.

Your partner can report the 'alleged' benefit fraud, they will loose their siblings but there is no guarantee that any enquiries could prove any wrongdoing either. If their relationship has broken down so much, they should cut their siblings out of their life and let extended family know the reason.

Grumpy_chap

ggtazzy said:

This is the situation my partners father was disabled and claiming benefits

 Why did he keep it in cash in house because he could not have any more than £16,000 in his bank account. 

I am no expert on benefits, but I thought the threshold for reducing entitlement is a sliding scale from £6k to £16k after which entitlement is zero.   Withdrawal just to keep below £16k will have made little difference for benefits.

sammyjammy

Mrs_Z said:

The_Fat_Controller said:

I have no idea how a joint account would be treated after one party dies in the absence of a will.

From what I understand, a joint account would not be counted as part of an estate as it automatically goes/stays with the the other joint account owner if you die, ie: when death of a joint account holder occurs, the funds in the joint account will usually automatically pass to the surviving account holder by what is known as ‘survivorship’. This means that NONE of the money in the joint account will pass to the deceased account holder’s estate.

How did the siblings even gain access to this account?  Was the bank notified of the death of the account holder?

It may well be that doesn't mean DWP wouldn't have interest in it, 50% of the contents would have been considered his by DWP and would possibly have impacted benefits he received.

sammyjammy

Grumpy_chap said:

ggtazzy said:

This is the situation my partners father was disabled and claiming benefits

 Why did he keep it in cash in house because he could not have any more than £16,000 in his bank account. 

I am no expert on benefits, but I thought the threshold for reducing entitlement is a sliding scale from £6k to £16k after which entitlement is zero.   Withdrawal just to keep below £16k will have made little difference for benefits.

Its a bit more complicated and different for pensioners.

Sea_Shell

sammyjammy said:

Grumpy_chap said:

ggtazzy said:

This is the situation my partners father was disabled and claiming benefits

 Why did he keep it in cash in house because he could not have any more than £16,000 in his bank account. 

I am no expert on benefits, but I thought the threshold for reducing entitlement is a sliding scale from £6k to £16k after which entitlement is zero.   Withdrawal just to keep below £16k will have made little difference for benefits.

Its a bit more complicated and different for pensioners.

Do we know if the deceased was a pensioner?

I've skimmed back and I can't see any mention of ages.

Grumpy_chap

sammyjammy said:

Grumpy_chap said:

ggtazzy said:

This is the situation my partners father was disabled and claiming benefits

 Why did he keep it in cash in house because he could not have any more than £16,000 in his bank account. 

I am no expert on benefits, but I thought the threshold for reducing entitlement is a sliding scale from £6k to £16k after which entitlement is zero.   Withdrawal just to keep below £16k will have made little difference for benefits.

Its a bit more complicated and different for pensioners.

Yes, but the OP said:

ggtazzy said:

This is the situation my partners father was disabled and claiming benefits for over 40 years 

There is no mention of age at death but I'd assumed at least some of that "over 40 years" was below state pension age.  For a male to accrue over 40 years beyond age 65 takes them to over 100 so I'd even say some of that "over 40 years" must have been while working age.

Sea_Shell

Have you made any decisions yet?

@ggtazzy

pinkshoes

As your partner is clearly not going to speak to the siblings again, the I guess a suggestion would be to phone them up, let them know you can "prove" the other money existed in cash in the house, so unless they pay your partner the fair share of the inheritance and show some receipts for costs, then you will be contacting the DWP so that the entire estate will be clawed back due to the benefit fraud that took place.

(your partner will probably then lose their £2000 too, but you did say they didn't care about the money...)

Some people behave so badly when it comes to death and inheritance.