Wills in Scotland

Fife59

HI 

didnt know where to put this so please move it to a better place if needed

My question is I have found out that I have been made a beneficiary of a will along with one other person
neither of us are related to the person
whole estate comes to around 20K
the person had a fall out with their daughter many years ago and she is not been left anything


I have just come across by accident that in Scotland children cannot be left out a will and have a legal right for 20 years to claim on a parents will

can anyone shed any light on this ,
thanks 

TiVo_Lad

That's correct. This is known as the child’s entitlement to Legal Rights. The law in Scotland has always provided children of a deceased with a basic level of protection, so that even if a child is not mentioned as a beneficiary in the will of a parent, the child still has a right to claim on the estate which takes precedence over the terms of the will. If there is no surviving spouse, any children can as a group claim half of the estate. The executor of the estate has to take all reasonable steps to contact the surviving children before they wind up the estate.

Misslayed

Move to more appropriate board requested

MSE_ForumTeam5

Moved as suggested

Doctor_Who

I encountered this some years ago when my mother died in Scotland. My brother and I were the sole beneficiaries of the Will and we were the only living relatives and the executors of the Will. Several times we were asked to confirm that there were no other children who might inherit (spouses also have entitlements, but my father had died several years prior).

This might help:

https://www.wallacequinn.co.uk/disinheriting-your-children-in-scotland/#:~:text=In Scotland, there's been a,Legal Rights to your estate. 

buddy9

Generally, if the person has died and left a net moveable estate of £20k, then the daughter (if an only child and there is no surviving spouse or civil partner) is entitled to receive £10k with the other £10k going to the other beneficiaries in line with the will. The executor should be arranging this.

But if the source of the net estate is from heritable property, then the daughter is entitled to nothing.

GSS20

A child claiming legal rights is entitled to one half of a half of any moveable estate. You can leave any real estate to whoever you like. The executor should have informed the daughter of her legal rights and ensured that she wished to relinquish her legal rights. She would have a claim against the executors  if they have distributed the money before finding this out and the beneficiaries refused to return the money.

buddy9

GSS20 said:

A child claiming legal rights is entitled to one half of a half of any moveable estate. 

An only child is entitled to a half, not one half of a half.

crashedandcool

Since it's not been mentioned probably irelevant. Any deceased children would still be entitled to legal rights and their share would pass to for example any children they left(I got legal rights in this fashion.) I'm unsure how possessions form part of the estate as we didn't get anything from the house value and sale nor anything from the value of the possessions.

Fife59

Apologise for the delay in responding, thank you so much to everyone who took the time to point me in the right direction.

Willeri

That’s Scotland for you