No official Will in place.

sinbad09

Bit of a long story this one so please bear with me. My mother and stepfather met in 1979 but never married until 2006. There are 2 daughters and me on my mothers side and also an adopted grandchild that my mother and stepfather adopted as my sister (her mom) was having mental health issues back then. We are all in our 50s now and my niece the adopted grandchild is now in her mid 20s. On my step fathers side there is a son and a daughter both in their 50s as well and while we were amicable with them they lived with my step fathers first wife when we were all growing up.

My mother died in 2022 and left around £4k which obviously went to my step father we encouraged him to prepay for his funeral with the money rather than give us anything as mom had done that and took some of the worry away when she passed.  He decided to spread the money across both sides of the family and prepaid for his funeral himself as he did have some considerable savings. We were all fine with that arrangement.

My stepfather was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2020 and passed away last week after around 18 months of constant back and forth in/out of hospital and this is where things get a little murky.  About 18 months it did look like we might lose him and his son wanted power of attorney over his affairs before he died which my stepfather agreed to and we didn't get involved even though we knew his sons attitude was known to be "anything my dad leaves is mine". Like I say we kept quiet as we certainly didn't want to burden our stepfather with petty arguments and no one on our side is money motivated in that kind of entitled way. 

I often helped my stepfather with online things such as car insurance and gas/ electric so he would show me statements and it was in these statements I could see my step brother was syphoning off five figure sums of money. My step father had said he would leave his money in a similar way to how he had distributed my mom's both to me and my sister but we always made comments such as "oh that's a long time away dad" etc as it always felt a bit distasteful to discuss at length. I'm pretty sure my step brother would have framed these transfers as "I'll put this aside for you dad so it doesn't affect your attendance allowance or s you don't have to  pay 100% of care costs. My stepfather basically entrusted him to do right by us all when the time came but we knew he wouldn't, we just hoped to be pleasantly surprised and proved wrong.

So basically when my step father died last week my step brother took anything of value from the house (council) and then asked to meet up with us two days later to divide and photos and what he described as something else...

The day arrived and he tried to give us £200 each and thank us for all our help with care over the last 18 months (we had done ten times more than him and his sister hadn't seen our step father for 18 month before his death). He said it was a personal gift from him and any money left of his dad's he would be keeping everyone else but us is cut out including their adopted granddaughter (my niece) 

I'm happy to disown and never have any dealings with him again and don't care about the money at all. I am really tempted to throw a spanner in the works though as I think he syphon off between 15 and 20k while my stepfather was alive and there's probably around another 15 to 20k when insurance policies and what's left in his account is totted up.

My question is where do we as his step children and adopted grandchild stand. Is there anything we can do, would be happy to just tie the money up in legal wrangler for as long as possible as it will drive him nuts...

sinbad09

I'd just like to add my main drive for wanting to cause issues for him is born by my anger at his complete disregard for his father wishes. But on the other hand I know my step father would not have wanted me to get his son in legal trouble either. As I said I'm jut to gum up the works and make him have to wait a long time to get anything.

FlorayG

I don't know a lot, but if he died intestate ( no will) then I believe nobody can take anything until probate has been granted, so your step-brother is essentially stealing. The Power of Attorney lapses when the person dies

sinbad09

I think there are two insurance policies in place which total around 10k and there should have been around 15k in the account based on his most recent statement I saw. As my step brother had power of attorney though he could have syphoned that off too in recent weeks. How does it work with insurance policies and is there a min amount for probate.

Linton

If there is no will the disposition of the estate must follow the rules, see https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-will. Basically the money goes to a spouse and then down the blood line. Adopted children are  regarded as being in the bloodline but step-children are not.

What "the deceased would have wanted" or what anyone may have considered unfair is totally irrelevent.  

sinbad09

Thankyou, while my stepfather believed  his wishes would be fulfilled by his son I totally get that with no official will his son can do what he wants as immoral as I find that. Would that typically be a 3 way even split between the blood son and daughter and adopted granddaughter. 

gwynlas

as @Liinton above  says  you describe him as step father to you and your sisters however he appears to be the father by formal adoption to your niece which means she is equally entitled to a share of his estate as his son and daughter.

sinbad09

I'm assuming not much can be done about the transfers to his account before my stepfathers death as they can be passed off as a gift. What would happen if he spent all of the leftover released funds from the bank and insurance policies without dividing it with his sister and his dad's adopted child (my niece). Would he have to repay them both or would he be done for fraud.

Marcon

sinbad09 said:

Thankyou, while my stepfather believed  his wishes would be fulfilled by his son I totally get that with no official will his son can do what he wants as immoral as I find that. Would that typically be a 3 way even split between the blood son and daughter and adopted granddaughter. 

If there's no valid will, then the laws of intestacy apply - see Linton's post above. Those laws are entirely clear, so 'typically' doesn't come into it; they have to be followed.

sinbad09 said:

I'd just like to add my main drive for wanting to cause issues for him is born by my anger at his complete disregard for his father wishes. But on the other hand I know my step father would not have wanted me to get his son in legal trouble either. As I said I'm jut to gum up the works and make him have to wait a long time to get anything.

Sounds as if he's already got it, so although I sympathise (enormously!) with your sense of outrage, I think you're in danger of making your own life a misery just to spite him. Yes, tempting; when people behave badly it's all too easy to respond in kind. But isn't your own time more valuable to you than wasting his?

sinbad09

Oh I won't waste much time on it but if there's things I can do easily that will teach him a lesson such as encouraging my niece to claim her rightful share them I certainly won't lose any sleep or feel any guilt or sense of sinking to his level in doing that.

poseidon1

I would add  one further comment. The £325,000 nil rate band is largely only of relevance if one dies within 7 years of making a gift ( things get more complicated with trusts made during lifetime). 

For this reason there is actually no upper limit to outright IHT free gifts, £1 million, £10 Million, 100 Million  etc(  - you get my drift), the only requirement is survive 7 years thereafter.

This is one of the reasons the very rich, with assets they don't need to support their ongoing lifestyles can avoid IHT whilst the bulk of the population with far modest estates cannot.