Probate/intestacy stalemate query

AMILLIONDOLLARS wrote: »

Rounding up people and getting them to court is another matter! If your mother feels strongly enough, then she will need to challenge, as pointed out she has tried everything to resolve the matter. Your Uncle is being very greedy, we came with nothing and we will all go the same way.

AMD

He's absolutely driven by greed, mainly because he was brought up with a sense of entitlement and that whole (now thankfully outdated) idea of men being more important and more worthy than women. (So in this case, the son is more important than the daughter.) All the men in my family were put on pedestals by my grandmother and, in her eyes, could do no wrong. I used to make the joke that my sister and I could buy my grandmother an identical present but mine would be "better" because it came from me, the man.

I've tried to keep the minutiae out of this as much as possible so as to keep things clear, but he basically turned a minor falling out between my mother and grandmother into a longer estrangement, within 3 months had my grandmother writing a will leaving him everything, then set about perpetuating an entirely false narrative about my mother to blacken her name and paint her as a terrible daughter.

The best illustration I can give is this: It got to the point where my grandmother was dying of cancer and was being given 24 hour care by my mother (a former nurse) at my mother's home. For a 6 week period, my mother got practically no sleep as my grandmother needed attending to around the clock. My uncle would ring my mother drunk (he's an alcoholic), abusing her and upsetting my grandmother.

My mother would sit up with my grandmother all night when she could not sleep, attend to her toilet needs (I won't be graphic but you can work out the reality of this), yet the following morning would have my uncle in her front room refusing to leave and threatening to assault my mother. (The police were called on one occasion.) All this took place in front of my dying grandmother, all driven by my uncle's fear that the care my mother was giving my grandmother could somehow threaten his "entitlement."

My mother did everything for my grandmother (as she did for my grandfather when he was dying of cancer a few years earlier) but continues to be painted as this terrible hate figure because of the lies my uncle has told.

Now there's still a good chance he'll get away with keeping the whole estate. The injustice of the whole situation, and particularly the false narrative about my mother which is yet to be challenged (but hopefully can be if it goes as far as court?) is very hard to accept and drives me to do the best job I can for my mother in helping to get justice for her if I can.

getmore4less wrote: »

One of the claims is the will was stolen as prt of a robbery .

The offender of the offence is a relative and was convicted.

What do they say about the will being included in the haul and what did they do with it?

We don't actually believe this story that's being put forward (regarding my grandmother's nephew stealing her will when he robbed her house - we think it's an attempt to connect a falsehood to a reality), but...

Supposedly, when he robbed the house, he took £2,000 in money, jewellery and various documents including the will, not realising the will was among them. He then panicked and dumped the documents at the local tip. Supposedly.

securityguy wrote: »

On the face of it, that's an entirely plausible scenario. Grab the "special things" box, run, ferret through it once you're somewhere safe, dump the stuff you can't sell. You may have reason to disbelieve it as part of some larger concern ("that's convenient"), but given there's no dispute that the robbery took place, the scenario outlined is perfectly likely.

Absolutely. My thoughts on the matter are one thing, disproving his account is another. However, it then begs the question as to why my grandmother didn't replace her will when she knew it had been stolen.