Advice MIL died without leaving a will

RAS

You just respond to any legal claim of theft by repeating what you said above. If there is any remaining evidence of ebay sales, that might back it up?

I'm not sure how your bedroom furniture got to be in the house and were the china and pottery yours or mums?

It might also be worth just getting a philatelist to look at and value the stamps. It's easy enough to look up the value of both the china and pottery. It is always possible sis sold them and added them to the value of the estate? I'll skip the emoji.

Neither affect the need to distribute the estate in line with the law.

If you did anything it might be to value the items taken and make a minor adjustment to the money received by both parties. It is normal for household members to take some less valuable items as mementos.

Bear in mind that for the purposes of IHT the contents of most houses are valued at £500-£1k. Although that would exclude valuable jewellery etc. But most people's cherished collections are worth very little.

Flugelhorn

I wouldn't worry re the possessions bit  - they are her trying to distract things - so yes it is hot air. Most possessions are not worth much in the long term even if it is Royal Dalton / Wedgwood etc 

Spendless

I like the letter it's very clear and concise.

As above these possessions rarely amount to much. When my Nan went into a care home and Mum had to list all her assets I talked her out of saying that Nan's Royal Dalton collection was worth a few thousand (like Nan always believed)  Sure enough, Mum was later to put it in an auction it didn't even fetch £200 and when Mum took Nan's jewellery to someone she knew - he looked very kindly at her and diplomatically suggested the family kept it as a memento.

Do you think it's possible that the letter arrived on Friday or before and she'd seen it and this email is the counter-attack? Or just one of life's co-incidences? 

Fore-warned is fore-armed though, in the event it is brought up get your ducks in a row with what sis-in-law has accused you/husband  of taking. List it, look for a 2nd hand value and any evidence that sis-in law took it (even old messages/emails etc referring to it). 

tooldle

How did the coins and stamps come into your OH’s possession? Were they gifted by parent prior to death or acquired after mum passed? 

poppystar

She is just trying to deflect the issue. The main point that needs to be presented to her in broken record form is that your OH should have received half of the estate and should have done so by now. I wouldn’t worry about the stamps etc. if you want to be prepared as someone else has said do get them valued but don’t get drawn in to discussing this with her now. If she mentions such things just reiterate that the estate should have been halved and distributed by now ignoring these petty other things. 

I assume the solicitor has a plan for what happens after the 14 days? I’m a little surprised that a timescale for distributing the estate wasn’t mentioned in the letter since it it well overdue but perhaps that was deliberate on the solicitors part. 

Good luck and good wishes to you and OH - thanks for keeping us updated.

tooldle

Stamps and coins can be worth a reasonable chunk of cash, hence why I was asking how these came into possession of OP’s OH.

Spendless

tooldle said:

Stamps and coins can be worth a reasonable chunk of cash, hence why I was asking how these came into possession of OP’s OH.

The OP has worded it as 'a few' so unless there's something of rarity and/or significance I suspect it'll fall into the category of worth that my Nan's china collection did or the OP's missing bedroom furniture.

I save up those picture 50p for my DS and put them in his stocking each year, most aren't worth a great deal (No Kew Gardens or Paddington at the Palace - one that would have raised in value only last year). I've read that King Charles has a stamp collection. That I suspect will be valuable, not only because it's likely to have rarities that the average Joe would struggle to find, but because the collection  is owned by a Monarch.

Unless these items were gifted before MIL's death though you're correct that they also form part of the estate.

Flugelhorn

The Royal stamp collection has stamps that are just not available to anyone else - they were given samples / misprints etc and these will never be on the open market. The collection is extremely valuable

I sold my uncle's coins and stamps (as an admin of the estate)  via ebay / auctions etc - he had collected for years and paid out a fair bit but they hadn't been stored well so that affected the value. Got 3.5K before fees - most was a few rarer 200 year old Crowns and some sovereigns - the rest didn't come to much 

flaneurs_lobster

Spendless said:

 I've read that King Charles has a stamp collection. That I suspect will be valuable, not only because it's likely to have rarities that the average Joe would struggle to find, but because the collection  is owned by a Monarch.

The Royal collection is thought to be worth north of £100M. Whether it is the property of King Charles is open to debate.

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/apr/13/revealed-official-gifts-to-royal-family-contained-in-100m-private-stamp-collection

tooldle

Spendless said:

tooldle said:

Stamps and coins can be worth a reasonable chunk of cash, hence why I was asking how these came into possession of OP’s OH.

The OP has worded it as 'a few' so unless there's something of rarity and/or significance I suspect it'll fall into the category of worth that my Nan's china collection did or the OP's missing bedroom furniture.

I wouldn't assume. The father may have been collecting for years or, might have inherited the stamps or had them gifted from elsewhere. I have a clock collection passed down through the family. There is one clock with a significant value although unknown by the person who originally acquired the clock. Significance and rarity change with time and circumstance.