Residuary beneficiaries

shaz60

I am executor to a will where residuary beneficiaries are named as married couples, I.e. ‘20% to my nephew Jo Bloggs and his wife Sarah Bloggs’. Do I pay them 10% each? Also one of the couples have since divorced - does this affect anything or does their share still just get split the same? Thanks in advance.

Keep_pedalling

This sounds horribly like a DIY will.  These people are not residual beneficiaries as they get fixed percentages rather than a share of what ever is left after all the other beneficiaries have been paid.

Can you give us the exact wording of these clauses with names redacted.

Flugelhorn

Keep_pedalling said:

 These people are not residual beneficiaries as they get fixed percentages rather than a share of what ever is left after all the other beneficiaries have been paid.

I wondered that but suppose it could be 20% of whatever is left over that end and hence would be residual beneficiaries

sounds like a bit of a pickle

FlorayG

This could even be read as they get 20% EACH...

Keep_pedalling

FlorayG said:

This could even be read as they get 20% EACH...

Which is what made me think DIY. 

poppystar

Hopefully the percentages in the Will add up to 100% so it’s possible to see whether it was meant to be per couple or each. 

Flugelhorn

poppystar said:

Hopefully the percentages in the Will add up to 100% so it’s possible to see whether it was meant to be per couple or each. 

good point - hope they don't add up to 125%

Keep_pedalling

poppystar said:

Hopefully the percentages in the Will add up to 100% so it’s possible to see whether it was meant to be per couple or each. 

It won’t if there are residual beneficiaries who get what’s left after the percentages are taken.  

shaz60

The will isn’t DIY, done through solicitors. There are several cash legacies to individuals then the residuaries are listed as 5 lots of 20% but all of them are named couples (one couple have since divorced which is a whole new thread!). Exact wording for each residuary is ‘as to a 20% share of residue for such of my Nephew Joe Bloggs and my Nephew’s wife Sarah Bloggs both of …… (address) as shall survive me and if more than one equal shares and if both of them shall fail to obtain a vested interest leaving issue who survive me then such issue shall take by substitution such failed share and if there shall be more than one of such issue they shall take in each shares per stripes but so that no issue shall take whose parent is alive and so capable of taking.

Keep_pedalling

Bloody odd way of doing a will, no thought has been given to what happens if they are no longer married, but at least we now know that there were 8 residual beneficiaries and that it is 20% per couple not 20% each.

As there is no clause as to what happens if a couple split up. I am not sure what happens in the case of the divorced couple but I think you probably needs legal advice. If it had just said Joe Bloggs and his wife, I think it would be safe to say it all goes to Joe, but the spouse is named so I don’t know how that impacts it. Under English law if your will leaves a bequests to your own wife but you subsequently divorce without making a new will, that bequest fails but I don’t know if the same rule applies in this case.

poseidon1

shaz60 said:

The will isn’t DIY, done through solicitors. There are several cash legacies to individuals then the residuaries are listed as 5 lots of 20% but all of them are named couples (one couple have since divorced which is a whole new thread!). Exact wording for each residuary is ‘as to a 20% share of residue for such of my Nephew Joe Bloggs and my Nephew’s wife Sarah Bloggs both of …… (address) as shall survive me and if more than one equal shares and if both of them shall fail to obtain a vested interest leaving issue who survive me then such issue shall take by substitution such failed share and if there shall be more than one of such issue they shall take in each shares per stripes but so that no issue shall take whose parent is alive and so capable of taking.

A very odd arrangement.

There is a chance that the divorced spouse entitlement fails ( because they are no longer a spouse ) but if there are children of that particular union do they take the failed share of residue by substitution?
  This sounds like one of those cases where the solicitor may well need to seek a  barrister's opinion to untangle this particular knot. Bad drafting in not considering the possibility of divorce, bearing in mind the UK's high divorce rates.