Any advice please on how to tackle the council from taking most of my inheritance.

bobster2

Section62 said:

bobster2 said:

Emmia said:

There's an argument that as you had clearly not seen him for many, many years, and weren't in contact with him or anyone he knew in a way that you'd have either been aware he'd gone into nursing care and subsequently died,  that you shouldn't have any claim on his estate. That's not how inheritance laws work though, so you have a claim.

What is the point of presenting that "argument" when it's completely irrelevant? The executors / administrators just need to follow the rules of intestacy.

If you were trying to have a dig at the OP - note the part where they say their father walked out on the family - hence the lack of contact.

Not entirely... it does demonstrate a clear lack of dependency, if that were to come into the equation.

OP doesn't need to prove dependency under intestacy rules. It doesn't come into the equation.

Someone else (a non-relative) might want to try to show dependency (their own) to get a slice - not the OP. But they'd be too late now anyway (death was 3 years ago now). And challenge intestacy rules is very different to challenging a will.

So the lost of contact is completely irrelevant to the OP's current situation.

Emmia

bobster2 said:

Emmia said:

There's an argument that as you had clearly not seen him for many, many years, and weren't in contact with him or anyone he knew in a way that you'd have either been aware he'd gone into nursing care and subsequently died,  that you shouldn't have any claim on his estate. That's not how inheritance laws work though, so you have a claim.

What is the point of presenting that "argument" when it's completely irrelevant? The executors / administrators just need to follow the rules of intestacy.

If you were trying to have a dig at the OP - note the part where they say their father walked out on the family - hence the lack of contact.

The father walked out when the OP was a child, but they could as an adult in the intervening years, sought to seek out their father and build a relationship... But they didn't. The first they knew of the death of their father and their inheritance is when the heir hunters came knocking

Intestacy laws allow, as I said... for the remains of the estate to go to the OP... But the OP doesn't seem to like the fact (after bills are paid) that the remains of the estate add up to a small amount of money. £400 is better than nothing, especially coming from someone with whom the OP had in reality no relationship, other than a biological connection. 

I'm sorry if this all seems a bit harsh on the OP, but they have a small windfall, which they might not otherwise have received, and so ought to be pleased about that. But they seem more focused on alleging the council is stealing their inheritance. 

badmemory

I have to say I have some sympathy with the OP as those bills do seem to have come in a little late to say the least.  Enough to make anyone with a suspicious mind a little well suspicious.

msb1234

The one thing to remember is that any ‘inheritance’ is calculated AFTER all debts have been taken into consideration. So if someone dies with £1000 in the bank but owes £800 to the council, then the inheritance is £200. 

Section62

bobster2 said:

Section62 said:

bobster2 said:

Emmia said:

There's an argument that as you had clearly not seen him for many, many years, and weren't in contact with him or anyone he knew in a way that you'd have either been aware he'd gone into nursing care and subsequently died,  that you shouldn't have any claim on his estate. That's not how inheritance laws work though, so you have a claim.

What is the point of presenting that "argument" when it's completely irrelevant? The executors / administrators just need to follow the rules of intestacy.

If you were trying to have a dig at the OP - note the part where they say their father walked out on the family - hence the lack of contact.

Not entirely... it does demonstrate a clear lack of dependency, if that were to come into the equation.

OP doesn't need to prove dependency under intestacy rules. It doesn't come into the equation.

Someone else (a non-relative) might want to try to show dependency (their own) to get a slice - not the OP. But they'd be too late now anyway (death was 3 years ago now). And challenge intestacy rules is very different to challenging a will.

So the lost of contact is completely irrelevant to the OP's current situation.

Are you sure this is an intestacy case?  OP doesn't say no will exists.

There's also no detail about why the 'genealogy company' got in touch.

bobster2

Section62 said:

Are you sure this is an intestacy case?  OP doesn't say no will exists.

There's also no detail about why the 'genealogy company' got in touch.

Not 100% sure - but it sounds like it from the OP's description - i.e. it took 2 years for someone to contact him and it wasn't someone acting as an executor at the time who contacted him.

Normally the estate would need to be reasonable size to interest these genealogy ("heir hunting") companies

badmemory

But the thing is those companies can only guess, maybe from an address but have no idea how much debt is being carried.

Section62

bobster2 said:

Section62 said:

Are you sure this is an intestacy case?  OP doesn't say no will exists.

There's also no detail about why the 'genealogy company' got in touch.

Not 100% sure - but it sounds like it from the OP's description - i.e. it took 2 years for someone to contact him and it wasn't someone acting as an executor at the time who contacted him.

Yes, not 100% sure.  It could be, but there are other possible scenarios that might fit.  The OP has a focus on the council taking money - and what we do know is it sounds like the council hasn't been overly efficient at handling the father's situation.  So there could be further facts - and maybe a Will - yet to emerge in the story.

Hence "completely irrelevant" being premature, until more is known.

bobster2 said:

Normally the estate would need to be reasonable size to interest these genealogy ("heir hunting") companies

Yes, that was my thought.  Some companies do take on very low value cases in the hope there might be 'hidden' assets, but on the face of it the OP's father's case doesn't stand out like there's a big profit to be made.

There are other reasons a 'genealogy company' might get in touch with someone - for example to see if they could help trace a third party.  You'd expect to OP to have mentioned that if there was something else... but maybe that didn't seem relevant to their specific issues with the council?