Not enough money left in will

Spendless

QuimbusFlestrim said:

bobster2 said:

Why have you started a second thread on the same topic? 6 hours after starting the first???

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6508819/not-enough-money-left-in-will

A poster asked me to post here. I cannot work out how to delete the old post. 

Ehhh? Both threads are on here. I'm unsure if you can delete a thread if you start it without asking the board guides, but I *think* you can edit it and include a link to this one.

silvercar

I have asked the Forum Team to merge the other thread into this one. Please comment on here and the other thread comments should be merged in shortly.

MSE_ForumTeam5

We've merged the threads.  (The best way to deal with duplicate threads is to press the 'report' button)

pjs493

I'm sorry to hear of your loss.

A similarly worded Will was made by a great aunt of mine many years ago with vaguely similar implications. I believe the Will was written a long time before she died, potentially when her husband was still alive. She obviously had a back up plan written into her Will if he died before her and that came into effect when she died. That might be why she didn't rewrite it following his death. Her husband died about 20 years before she did and she lived well into her 90s. They never had children. 

She stipulated that my sibling and I should receive a set amount of money (£5k) each. I can't remember if we were due to receive money if she predeceased her husband, I'd have to check the Will, but I think we were set to inherit the money if she died first which might be why it was worded the way it was with a set figure. If she died before her husband the other beneficiaries wouldn't get anything if my memory is right. As her husband predeceased her, the rest of the estate was divided between a list of individuals (my two cousins, my father, my uncle, and my grandfather). Those remaining individuals received approximately £65k each. 

It was believed that at the time the Will was written she gave a figure for my sibling and I to make sure we 'would be taken care of' as my parents were divorced and my mother was raising us comfortably, but there was never a great amount of money because she prioritised looking after us and only worked part time while we were at school. In the 80/90s when the Will was written, £5k would have been a decent amount of money for my sister and I to receive upon reaching our majority. 

My great aunt didn't realise how much the final estate would be worth when she wrote the Will and we assume she didn't realise that the residual estate would end up being worth so much. In the end our cousins ended up with £60k more than us, which we don't think was ever her original intention. Their parents were still together and financially well off. My father had remarried. Additionally, she didn't rewrite her Will following the death of my grandfather (about five years before she died), so his £65k was divided between my father and his brother (as the beneficiaries of my grandfather's estate).

There was never any animosity between any of the beneficiaries. The estate was administered by a solicitor. But ultimately I think we all realised that the estate wasn't actually divided in the manner she originally intended given that her estate ended up being worth a lot more than she thought when she wrote her Will. Potentially because her house appreciated in value quite considerably between the time her Will was written and when she died.