Any Success stories? Everything finally sorted after family "go rogue"

Sea_Shell

ProbateNewbie said:

I keep hearing stuff like this. Makes me wonder why bother making a Will if there's no penalty for it not being administered correctly. 🤨

It's sad to hear some of the horror stories on this issue.   Some people do get royally screwed over.

The law is usually on your side.  However, it's the access to that Justice, and the time any money involved that are a barrier.   

Most people don't want them punished*, they just want to force them to do the right thing.  


* Some people do want charges brought for theft, but this is very unlikely to be investigated or charged.    Civil litigation to recover the funds is usually the only option.

Keep_pedalling

ProbateNewbie said:

I keep hearing stuff like this. Makes me wonder why bother making a Will if there's no penalty for it not being administered correctly. 🤨

There are penalties, it just that it is difficult and expensive to get anything enforced. The same applies to intestate estates, but where there is no will the potential for things to go wrong are far greater. Failing to make a will increases the chance that the estate is mismanaged as you have no control of who ends up administering your estate. The vast majority of wills are administered correctly but you are not going to hear about them, and the ones we hear about usually involve the testator making some poor decisions in who they appoint trustees and executors. 

For unmarried partners or people with children & stepchildren with different partners no will can be a disaster leaving children disinherited or a partner left financially destitute because their assets go to a sibling a parent or are held in trust for young children.  

Sea_Shell

Keep_pedalling said:

ProbateNewbie said:

I keep hearing stuff like this. Makes me wonder why bother making a Will if there's no penalty for it not being administered correctly. 🤨

There are penalties, it just that it is difficult and expensive to get anything enforced. The same applies to intestate estates, but where there is no will the potential for things to go wrong are far greater. Failing to make a will increases the chance that the estate is mismanaged as you have no control of who ends up administering your estate. The vast majority of wills are administered correctly but you are not going to hear about them, and the ones we hear about usually involve the testator making some poor decisions in who they appoint trustees and executors. 

For unmarried partners or people with children & stepchildren with different partners no will can be a disaster leaving children disinherited or a partner left financially destitute because their assets go to a sibling a parent or are held in trust for young children.  

You're right, we only ever hear the problem ones, not the millions that get sorted amicably with no arguments.

That's partly why I wanted to hear some Happy Endings, so as to give a little hope to those going though these issues. 

BooJewels

I can't recall any threads here of that nature where it seemed to get sorted properly - either that or the OP never returned.  I don't know what the percentage is of estates that go awry - within my own small world I know of several recently administered estates and all were incident free.

On the flip side, I was recently a modest beneficiary and the Executor was someone who I was acrimoniously estranged from for over 30 years.  So when the testator told me she'd left me something and then passed away a few months later, I didn't expect to ever see it - certainly not in a timely manner.  But it became a bit of a revelation - I suspect because she nagged him mercilessly to look after me - plus it transpires she'd sent him a cheque to cover bequests a couple of weeks earlier.  But he kept me fully informed through her last days, I was the first person he rang after she passed and the money was with me a week after she died - along with some items she'd promised me and some other items he thought that I'd like as keepsakes.  I even downloaded the Will after probate, to check the details and was a bit surprised to find it was all exactly as he'd outlined it to me.  So sometimes it actually goes better than expected, when you're geared up for a protracted battle.

Silvertabby

Not so much a success story - more 'I dodged a bullet'

My sister was always the golden child, who was still living at home when our parents fell ill.  My mum refused to make a Will, in case doing so 'put the mockers on her', but she did say that the house should eventually go to us both equally.

A friend later told me that my mum's actual wishes were that my sister would remain in the house for as long as she wanted/needed but, as she was rubbish with money, I would pay for some major repairs needed and 'help' with the bills as it would also be 'my' house.

What actually happened was that after mum died my sister pursuaded dad to Will the house to her alone, as I was married and had my own home.  What was now my sister's house was in such a bad state of repair (my dad never believed in paying someone to do a job he could bodge himself) that she soon ran out of money and eventually went bankrupt.  The house was unmortgageable, and had to be sold at auction, where it went for less than £30K (this was over 20 years ago) - but she was lucky and got herself a council flat.

Yes, I lost half a house, but avoided an unending stream of demands for money.

Spendless

Keep_pedalling said:

ProbateNewbie said:

I keep hearing stuff like this. Makes me wonder why bother making a Will if there's no penalty for it not being administered correctly. 🤨

There are penalties, it just that it is difficult and expensive to get anything enforced. The same applies to intestate estates, but where there is no will the potential for things to go wrong are far greater. Failing to make a will increases the chance that the estate is mismanaged as you have no control of who ends up administering your estate. The vast majority of wills are administered correctly but you are not going to hear about them, and the ones we hear about usually involve the testator making some poor decisions in who they appoint trustees and executors. 

For unmarried partners or people with children & stepchildren with different partners no will can be a disaster leaving children disinherited or a partner left financially destitute because their assets go to a sibling a parent or are held in trust for young children.  

It was reading one of the stories on here - still not resolved/updated , that prompted me and DH to make wills last year. Previously it was one of those jobs on hold because we didn't wish to do anything that dying intestate wouldn't do anyway (estate too low for IHT).

As I followed the thread, I realised that either of my 2 (adult) children could apply to be administrators. One child  would probably be the most likely to wish to deal with it all but is hopeless at  budgeting and maths in general (to the point it's been queried if they have dyscalculia) and would very easily find themselves in a pickle whilst managing to irritate their sibling over it all, who is better equipped to deal with things but more laid back about actually starting a process. So the will makes them joint executors and yes I'm aware they can both act separately if needed but just putting that step in that that we are expecting them to work together and agree and fingers crossed giving them many years notice that we expect that to be the case will hopefully control any issues the best we can. The alternative would be to pay a solicitor to be the executor, but we didn't feel we needed to do that at this point. Our solicitor also made us consider things we'd given no thought to, such as where we'd want our estate to go in the event of a disaster as we weren't happy with what the law would do otherwise, with it going to people we didn't want to or who didn't need it and also what expression of wishes did we want regarding our dog if the pet outlived us.

I'd also say many people don't make wills as they think they have nothing anyway. Even if that's the case it doesn't mean you'll die with nothing. In a recent case someone had died a few years after an accident and had received a large compensation amount. A will had never been done prior the accident and either hadn't or wasn't able to afterwards due to injuries. It meant that the balance left of the compensation went to the closest relative, someone that had been estranged from the deceased for decades and was in a care home with a limited life span, after that due to a blended family would be going to people not related or had never met.

I have a similar example that literally happened in my own backyard! A few summers ago DS fetched home a Uni friend and they spent the summer camping in our garden. One day a solicitor emails friend (by chance friend had linked an old childhood email he had to his Uni one). His Dad who had not seen for years and was estranged from had died. Dad had also been in a RTC around a decade earlier, sustained brain injuries needed supported care ever since and had received a large compensation claim as a result. Uni friend's parents had divorced many years earlier and friend was the only child. He inherited everything, paid around £700K in IHT and was a millionaire at 21. Friend wasn't on the best terms with his Mum and had no-one to talk his range of emotions through with (it was in-between lockdowns so limited places to turn to). One morning I came across him having a breakdown over it all in our garden. Months later on a subsequent visit Uni friend shows me a load of documentation relating to it all. I read the words 'GP Visit - to assess the ability to make a will'. The date was a month before his Dad's death. Friend became tearful, he  hadn't noticed it until I mentioned it and then said he thought he would have received nothing if that had been followed up or his Dad decided able (we won't ever know why it wasn't).

So yes, I have had someone who was a skint student with nothing  become a millionaire whilst camping in my garden! And should that ever happen to anyone else, and you need to become emotional support make sure you're fully aware it's legit. At one point my Mum fell out with me over it all because she believed Uni friend was being taken in by  scammers and we  were allowing it to happen - lol. 

pjs493

I’ll keep you posted but there is currently an ongoing issue in my extended family whereby the daughter from marriage 1 has stolen some valuable items from the surviving step mother of marriage 3. They deliberately did it because they feel animosity towards the step-mum for inheriting everything from the dad whose first two wives died at a young age while the children from both marriage were still minors.

Now the step-mum is the surviving spouse and unless she makes a will dividing assets between the four bio children of her late husband, her daughter from her first marriage stands to inherit the lot. 

The step mum sought legal advice and was told to write a letter before action etc etc. The step-daughter has refused to return the items, acknowledges that she stole them, etc. The step-mum was told by a solicitor to report the theft to the police if warnings didn’t work. The issue is now with the police who are investigating the matter. Apparently the police initially tried to argue it was a civil matter but when the step-mum pointed out that she’d tried civil remedies and had been advised to report the theft to police, the police agreed to investigate. 

Marcon

ProbateNewbie said:

I keep hearing stuff like this. Makes me wonder why bother making a Will if there's no penalty for it not being administered correctly. 🤨

Funny how bad news gets reported (or exaggerated!) so quickly - and people do love to make an ongoing saga/drama on far too many occasions. Why dwell on bad news for no real purpose?

There's normally a remedy if something isn't done correctly; sometimes a penalty - but if everyone gets what they should have received, the penalty is surely a secondary consideration?

Sea_Shell

pjs493 said:

I’ll keep you posted but there is currently an ongoing issue in my extended family whereby the daughter from marriage 1 has stolen some valuable items from the surviving step mother of marriage 3. They deliberately did it because they feel animosity towards the step-mum for inheriting everything from the dad whose first two wives died at a young age while the children from both marriage were still minors.

Now the step-mum is the surviving spouse and unless she makes a will dividing assets between the four bio children of her late husband, her daughter from her first marriage stands to inherit the lot. 

The step mum sought legal advice and was told to write a letter before action etc etc. The step-daughter has refused to return the items, acknowledges that she stole them, etc. The step-mum was told by a solicitor to report the theft to the police if warnings didn’t work. The issue is now with the police who are investigating the matter. Apparently the police initially tried to argue it was a civil matter but when the step-mum pointed out that she’d tried civil remedies and had been advised to report the theft to police, the police agreed to investigate. 

Yours is a thread I have read (and commented on), and I hope that the police can bring some pressure for the items to be returned.   Please come back and update your thread once it's resolved (good or bad) and if good, I'll link to this thread.

Sea_Shell

Marcon said:

ProbateNewbie said:

I keep hearing stuff like this. Makes me wonder why bother making a Will if there's no penalty for it not being administered correctly. 🤨

Funny how bad news gets reported (or exaggerated!) so quickly - and people do love to make an ongoing saga/drama on far too many occasions. Why dwell on bad news for no real purpose?

There's normally a remedy if something isn't done correctly; sometimes a penalty - but if everyone gets what they should have received, the penalty is surely a secondary consideration?

HARSH!!!

Yes, I agree we only tend to hear about the cases where things have gone bad, but what many of the posters of these threads are going through is not a saga/drama of their own making.   Some of them are left out of pocket by 10's of thousands of pounds!!  

The "remedy" may take years and cost ££££, which when you've lost someone, that's a battle you shouldn't have to go through, to get what you are legally entitled to.

The problems are usually that they are NOT getting what they should have received, and in many cases they NEVER do.

That's why I'm trying to find some Happy Endings, but struggling so far, unfortunately.


Have you had this happen to you?    If not, I hope you never have to face such issues.