Pension Beneficiaries Investigation

Millerfun

Hi all,
I will try my best to keep this as brief as I can! A little background - My brother (I’ll call him BB) and I had a very strong relationship throughout our lives. My brother was a complex character and certainly had a reputation for being so within the family and with his oldest closest friends. He often fell out with people and almost expected a blood written apology before he granted you his friendship again. He wasn’t a particularly reasonable tolerant bloke. He was gay and lost his partner about 15 years ago, no dependants. I suppose I hero worshipped him all my life and even told my boyfriend (now husband 23yrs) If my brother doesn’t like you we have no future, I never went against his words. Thankfully they got on well.  BB was an extension of our own little family and he lived with us on countless occasions, when he needed support, we fed him, cared for him until he was ready to face the world again. Once for 8 months, another time 6 months, you get the picture.
We had two older brothers, one in Australia, one in Navy, BB had no contact with them, they never got on with him and put up with his behaviour. I had contact with all brothers and was usually piggy in the middle. The only time there was contact was at parents funerals, BB didn’t go to either and there was a lot of drama. My father cut BB out of his Will.  It had a massive negative impact on him. Fast forward 50+yrs, BB and I had a falling out, but instead of me apologising it was just left and suddenly 5 years has passed by. I missed him dreadfully but didn’t want to be the one that apologised although I did see him in March and I tried to lay some stepping stones to re establishing things, he was very frosty and rude but I expected that, it would take a few more attempts before he would contemplate us being friends again!! I had done nothing wrong it was his unreasonable behaviour that caused an argument between my husband and him. 
In June I received a called that he had passed away. I was absolutely in shock, devastated and I still am. His 500k+ estate to which I was always sole beneficiary, all left to a friend who he saw once a year. She stopped me from going to see him at funeral home, she tried to stop anyone from telling us he had died! I heard He didn’t have a funeral as such, just a cremation which again I was not told about. Not an ounce of humility or empathy shown to myself and older brothers by this friend of his. Complying with his wishes apparently, I don’t doubt that but what harm could it have done, he’s gone! Let us have our peace! No morals to not even allow us to see him to make our peace.  Even his Solicitor who is an executor of the Will has been rude and quite arrogant towards me.  There are so many family possession in that house, some that belong to me! All requests have been rejected.I attempted to contest the Will but it was shot down straight away. We have been completely outcast. I cant even imagine what he has told them, we have only ever been good to BB.
This has had such a detrimental effect on my health, mentally and physically. I was sort of ok before but now I have difficulty walking and have been suicidal.  I am so completely heartbroken.  Slowly over the months I am trying to move on then out of the blue a letter from his Pension Provider asking for address details of my older brothers. It can only have been his Solicitor who notified them of my name and address. It states that they are conducting a full and thorough investigation before making a decision regarding beneficiaries. I rang them and they were so completely cagey that I felt like some sort of criminal and they wouldn’t tell me anything. The letter states they would be gathering information from all different sources so they make a robust decision ??!!! Is this normal. BB was always clever when it came to money, he had an NHS pension transferred into some sort of private pension that’s all i know but I would imagine it would be half decent. I gave my brothers details, one an address and email and the other just address. One who is Australia has had an email from them where they asked him if he wanted to be considered as a potential beneficiary to which he has said he doesn’t and thinks it should come to me. They asked whether he had any other information that may help and again he has told them about my relationship with him and how much I looked after him throughout  his life. My other brother hasn’t had a letter yet. 
Soooooo finally my questions are:-

1. Would they even bother contacting us if we were not going to even feature in their decision?

2. Why didn’t they ask me whether I wanted to be a potential beneficiary?

3. I know this sounds greedy but I am on benefits, at risk of losing my bungalow because of rent arrears, finances in a complete pickle. Do they look at your circumstances.

4.  Will BB solicitor be able to stop them giving us anything because we were cut out of his will?

Sorry I know this is a lengthy thread, I’m just so desperate to know whether I may benefit in some way financially but fear it’s just a going to be another boot into my stomach. I don’t think I could cope with that, I would of preferred not to know!

Thank you for taking the time to read through…. Tried to pack as much as I could in but of course there are mountains of evidence that I and my family have been treated so badly. Also apologies for any mistakes in thread, fingers can’t keep up with my brain!! Please, any help, advice.

molerat

The pension trustees work outside of the will, the will only distributes the estate and a pension does not form part of that.  They look at all who could potentially be entitled and base their decision on a multitude of factors - what they are doing is "very normal".  I suppose the solicitor could put a bad word in but that will just be one of the multitude of factors.

Millerfun

Thank you. I hope so, just wasn’t sure why they didn’t ask me the same questions. My other brother has no need for the money either and said he will be recommending it is paid out to me. Fingers crossed something good will come out of this ridiculously painful time.  

dunstonh

Millerfun said:

Soooooo finally my questions are:-

1. Would they even bother contacting us if we were not going to even feature in their decision?

2. Why didn’t they ask me whether I wanted to be a potential beneficiary?

3. I know this sounds greedy but I am on benefits, at risk of losing my bungalow because of rent arrears, finances in a complete pickle. Do they look at your circumstances.

4.  Will BB solicitor be able to stop them giving us anything because we were cut out of his will?

1 - They need to be aware of the family tree to decide who the beneficiaries should be.   
2 - Unclear unless they have already decided from the information you have that you should or should not be included in their consideration.
3 - not in this scenario - no.
4 - The solicitor will not offer any information of that sort.    The Will will be provided though and will carry a lot of weight in the decision making.


 

Millerfun

Thank you so much. Doesn’t sound too promising 😞🥺

tacpot12

Millerfun said:

Thank you so much. Doesn’t sound too promising 😞🥺

I'm not so sure. Pension Trustees tend to be very sensible and, in the absence of any statement from the scheme member about their wishes, they tend to follow convention, i.e. they tend to follow the rules of intestacy, unless someone says they don't want to be a beneficiary and asks for their share to be given to someone else. I would tell them that you were expecting to receive something in his Will and haven't and that you have rent arrears and that a small income would help substantially. Officially, they won't take this into account, but it might cause them to act slightly more favourably towards his family. 

I also wanted to comment that if there is property at the house that is yours and which you can prove is yours because you have receipts and documents that identify the items, you should write to the solicitor to ask for them back, and confirm you will take legal action to recover them.

As to the Will, it is upto your brother how he left his money. It's his to leave to whoever he wants. No one should have to have dishonest relationship with someone else just because they hope to be left something in their Will. I commend you for sticking to your guns and refusing to be manipulated him. It would best to focus on dealing with your rent arrears and not worrying about things you cannot do anything about. 

I would recommend checking with your local Citizens Advice to see if you are receiving all the benefits you might. If you receive any notice in relation to your rent arrears, call them immediately. 

Marcon

Millerfun said:

Slowly over the months I am trying to move on then out of the blue a letter from his Pension Provider asking for address details of my older brothers. It can only have been his Solicitor who notified them of my name and address.

Actually there's another possibility: BB completed something known as an Expression of Wish form and his pension provider took your details from that.

Millerfun said:

It states that they are conducting a full and thorough investigation before making a decision regarding beneficiaries. I rang them and they were so completely cagey that I felt like some sort of criminal and they wouldn’t tell me anything. The letter states they would be gathering information from all different sources so they make a robust decision ??!!! Is this normal. 

That's standard practice. Providers and trustees are always extremely careful not to give away any information - quite apart from data protection/privacy issues (relating as much to other potential beneficiaries as anything), they try to avoid raising false hopes from parties who might later be disappointed.

Millerfun said:

1. Would they even bother contacting us if we were not going to even feature in their decision?

2. Why didn’t they ask me whether I wanted to be a potential beneficiary?

3. I know this sounds greedy but I am on benefits, at risk of losing my bungalow because of rent arrears, finances in a complete pickle. Do they look at your circumstances.

4.  Will BB solicitor be able to stop them giving us anything because we were cut out of his will?

1. They seem to have contacted you to ask for details of contact information for your brothers as much as anything, so I don't think you can attach any weight to the letter in any other respect.
2. Because they already have your details - and I've suggested above, it could be that BB mentioned you on his Expression of Wish form - a form completed to help guide the decision-taking process. Whether he mentioned you positively (as in '...pay x%...') or negatively ('don't pay anything to...') isn't something anyone here could guess at, and the provider won't tell you for obvious reasons. I'm afraid it really is a case of waiting and seeing.
3. There's nothing at all to stop you writing to them with details of your situation. If they don't know, they can't take it into account - and I've seen plenty of occasions where trustees are very happy to have as much background as possible. At least that way you'll know you've had your chance to say your piece.
4. No.

Millerfun

Thank you so much for taking the time to read and reply to me. I believe in my heart that my brother made the decisions he did to hurt me. It was the only control he had left over me and whilst I was obviously upset regarding the estate, I was more hurt that I wasn’t there for him at the end. It breaks my heart thinking he was so ill and I didn’t know, so couldn’t help or comfort him in his last few weeks. It was a very aggressive short illness. There is so much I haven’t included, mainly because it would turn into a book but I just felt so incredibly sad and hurt.  I think it was his Solicitor because BB didn’t have my address. There were reasons for this, BB was not only complex but very vindictive and volatile, something I witnessed many times and I needed to protect my family.  He suffered with Bi Polar and whilst it was very well managed for many many years, his behaviour at times could leave you fearful.    I appreciate your responses though, I think it’s a case of wait and see and try and put it behind me again. what will be will be. 
Thank you all again.