Very stressed, don't trust executor, probably long and complicated. Been left a house in which we are tenants.

[Splandy]

I am currently extremely stressed out. Am due to give birth in four weeks, my mother in law died two months ago after I had been caring for her, high risk pregnancy, even planned a wedding within six weeks so she could be there etc etc. I can't imagine a more stressful pregnancy. She owns the house we live in and has left it to us in her will. She has also left us her death in service benefit which will clear the rest of the mortgage. She expected this to be paid out very quickly so that our home would be nice and secure but we have been informed that it will take them at least another three months as they have a backlog.

Her husband is co-executor of her will, along with her brother. Her husband is an idiot. I've never met somebody so childish and on a constant power trip. He also thinks he's a genius and knows how everything works, but things have already been delayed by two months because he didn't bother to find out how to do things, just assumed he could do it all! Unfortunately, she put him in as executor to relieve the stress of either my husband or his brother being an executor. It has only increased the stress as he is using this as an opportunity to constantly assert his authority and remind everybody of just how important he is.

She agreed to marry him whilst in the hospital, when we had been told she had days left to live. The exact reason she gave me was 'well he has looked after me and it'll be nice for everyone, plus nobody else can get my pension anyway, so somebody might as well'. That is how she felt about him. She refused to marry him until she'd had an emergency will drawn up which took into account the marriage and totally excluded him from any of her estate, despite them getting married. Everything she had, she wanted to go to her children. She clearly didn't entirely trust him herself, she would tell me that he was jealous of anybody else being around and wanted to keep he all to himself. As far as I'm concerned, she was never madly in love with him. She allowed him to move in for financial reasons when both her sons moved out very close together and made sure he was in no way associated with her mortgage or house etc. I think he was a companion to her and she ignored all of the bad stuff about him. Once the will was drawn up, she had us hide it so he couldn't read it. He had a tantrum in the hospital when he realised she wasn't just going to immediately marry him or leave him her car... Sat there making snarky comments to her while we all thought she was dying. Kept talking about how he could kick her sons out of the room if he wanted to because she'd put him on her form as next of kin. Actually had a fight with her brother after telling him he was thinking of banning him and his mom from coming to the hospital. Told everybody he might not bother telling us if she was about to die so it could just b the two of them... My mother in law was an extremely dedicated mom and nothing was as important to her as her two sons. Dealing with him at all in any situation is awkward cos he's an odd guy who can't cope if people disagree with him, but this is terrible. She had it written into her will that he could stay in her house for six months while he sorted out other accommodation. She told us all to make sure he didn't outstay his welcome and to put her house on the market as soon as we could so he didn't think he could stay. If you were to hear him talk, you'd think their relationship was all that mattered to her and she was madly in love with him, only truly cared about him, he was the only one that really knew her. He is constantly looking for sympathy and telling people that it is all much worse for him because she was his wife. My blood pressure spikes every time we have to deal with him and I have a history of eclampsia so this is really causing me problems. He seems to think he can take things from her house and start getting rid of her things, and is adamant that he has to be there if her sons go through her stuff. None of it belongs to him. He even sent me a message from her phone, pretending to be her, then couldn't understand why my husband went to the house and removed the phone. She allowed him to have her bank card and pin to withdraw cash to pay for her funeral upfront so her sons would have to pay as little as possible out of their inheritance... Once again, that was her priority. she then told me she was very concerned that he had access to her card and asked me to make sure he couldn't get to it. He used it to withdraw five hundred pounds the day after she'd died in case the funeral was more than we were quoted. This money hasn't been given back. Im just giving this background so you can see exactly what we're dealing with and why I don't trust him.

Our house is owned by my mother in law, left to us and we've been left the death in service to pay off the mortgage. When she took out the mortgage, she tOok out one which specifically stated she couldn't let to relatives, which we didn't know at the time. I don't see this causing problems but thought it may be relevant. Her husband is now saying that he doesn't want to push to get probate until we have the cash in our hands, so that there are no problems with us having our names on the house and being unable to immediately pay for it. This conveniently means her house can't be put onto the market while he's there. He's also ever so helpfully decided he 'might stay in the house a little while longer', as though he can just decide that. He said that he spoke to the mortgage company dealing with our house and told them she'd died and they froze the mortgage, but he wasn't clear on this. He's now saying that we should still be paying rent into the estate. But all of her accounts are frozen. His idea is now for us to give him money and he will give it to the mortgage company. He had not achieved probate so, as far as I understand it, does not have any authority to gather assets or deal with her finances right now. This seems to me like just blindly giving him our money and hoping he does what he says he will with it. Won't the mortgage company just freeze the mortgage now anyway and then we will have to cover the rent that should've been paid once probate is achieved and the estate can be accessed? What would a normal tenant do in this situation? From what I've read online, the advice seems to be not to pay anybody any rent until you have seen official paperwork stating that they have the authority to act on behalf of the estate, but put it away and pay it all once it is clear who legally owns the house.

I just don't trust him at all or really believe that he knows what he's talking about. Any advice is welcome. His latest gem is 'I could contest the will if I wanted to, I didn't sign her will and waive my rights to half of her estate... But obviously I won't', whilst sitting in my home which forms part of her estate and is all wrapped up in this. He is coming over to evening to talk and I hate confrontation but all he has done is cause stress and problems since she died, with the funeral, the wake, her belongings, her family because he's so possessive and controlling and has this constant need to be the important one and on a power trip. I haven't been able to sleep for the past two nights in the run up to having to speak to him again :(

[greenfolder]

What is the other executors position? Your best course of action I would think is to get your Dhs uncle is side, sit down with him and talk through your best course of action which is probably the uncle taking charge and getting legal advice if needs be

[Grazia1984]

I think obligations like to pay rent continue but to the estate.

He might have a right under the Provision for family and inheritance act of abotu 1973 to claim on an estate when a spouse leaves another spouse out of a will -= probably getting her private pension is not big enough a payment which is why she shoudl have taken advice from a solicitor before she married him. Did she made her will after her marriage to him by the way asn that makes a difference in law? A later marriage affects an earlier will.

[RandomMess]

Which country was she resident in as it does make a difference.

I would beg that the uncle pays for a professional executor service to be paid out of the estate.

[stinkingbishop]

The key phrase here is "I am due to give birth in 4 weeks". I think, to preserve your physical and mental health (and thus that of the baby) you need to hand this one over. Not just practically, but the reposnsibility, worry and headspace too. To your brother, and his uncle (if he's sensible) AND, if you can afford it, suggest they get themselves a lawyer to wade in. I would imagine a few letters will quickly prick the chancer's bubble.

[FadedRed]

Sounds a nightmare for you and your DH. Sorry for your loss

[lalalonglegs]

Concentrate on your birth and grieving. Seriously, you are not going to be homeless so just don't think about it until you are in a better frame of mind. If your husband and the co-executor haven't made significant progress by that time, then I would second spending a few hundred quid on a decent lawyer. Have no dealings with this man at all. Conserve your energy and your sanity. Don't let your husband even mention him to you unless the conversation is prefixed by the words: "The will has all been sorted out."

[Splandy]

Thanks all so much for your replies :) she was a UK citizen and she had the will drawn up at very short notice at the hospital by a solicitor, which was very expensive, but she would only go ahead with the marriage once that had been done. She signed it a few hours before she got married. The solicitor stated in the will something along the lines of it taking into account the marriage taking place And that the will was not to be invalidated by this marriage. The will was very complicated and wordy! I don't seriously think that he would have any real claim to her estate, she did ask the solicitor about it at the time since he was living at her house, and was advised that he wasn't financially dependent on her, was actually better off than her, had been living in her house for less than a year and already had his own home which he could move into, but she'd made provisions for him to stay in her house for a while anyway and financially, they lived separately. He gave her some money towards utilities and shopping but she never allowed his name to be put onto any account to do with the house. So she said it was very unlikely he'd get anywhere if he tried. I don't really think he's going to do this either, it's just another thing he's said to make my blood boil.

At the moment, nothing is able to be paid into her bank account, it is all frozen. Is this not normal? That's why his idea was that we could give him money and he could give it to the mortgage company. We had our meeting with him last night, which went quite well. I told him that I didn't think tenants would usually just trust that they should hand money over to him since he has no paperwork stating that he has any kind of authority over her estate. Even though it says that he is a co-executor in the will, for all normal tenants know, he could have refused to take on the responsibility but still turned up at the door trying to collect money with the will as his proof. I'm not concerned about us paying the rent or mortgage, I just don't want to hand money over to him. He's told us that her car insurance company owe her a refund but won't pay out because they can't put it into her account. So he's told them to put it into his account and then he will use it to pay expenses such as the probate application. But he doesn't know whether they will agree to this. This sounds dodgy to me. If this happened and he kept all paperwork relating to the payment and the expenses that were then covered by it, I wouldn't feel too concerned as we could see exactly where the money had gone, but I don't feel too comfortable with anything concerning her money going into his bank account, including my rent payments! Although he has said that the company who insure her home have allowed him to pay the insurance in his name, so perhaps this can happen.

We asked whether the mortgage could just be frozen for now, he says he will call tomorrow and see what they say the options are. The money will all be paid back to them when we get it anyway, so I don't think that would cause problems, since thy don't know whether the tenants pay rent or not, they get their money from my mother in law. However, is there any other concern with rent not being paid to the estate? For tax or anything like that? When I looked online, I did see quite a lot of advice telling people they shouldn't pay rent until they see paperwork telling them who owns the house or who has authority to deal with it, so I was thinking it wouldn't be that strange for tenants not to pay rent for now until things become clearer and then pay the arrears once things become clear. He did tell us that it was the solicitor who drew up the will that told him rent should still be paid to the estate, I'm just not sure of how we should go about doing that if we can't pay money into her account!

I have spoken to my husband and his brother and they have agreed to meet up with their uncle and talk things through with him. I think he's quite clueless when it comes to this stuff so hasn't really been involved yet, He'll just jointly sign paperwork when it needs to be done, but I want the family to all be aware of things and be prepared to have one single answer for her husband when issues arise rather than none of us knowing what other people are thinking or have already discussed with him. If we do have to pay our rent through an executor, I will want it to be my husband's uncle. He has his nephews best interests at heart and I trust him. I'm just a little concerned about riling him up over things, I don't want to make the situation any worse so need to tread carefully. The husband still seems to think we are all friends (but not with the uncle, he keeps having little digs at him when we talk) and keeps taking about our plans for the future and how we'll all do things together and often refers to us as family at every opportunity. So messages to us all as a group will often start with 'hi family', because of that need he seems to have to be very important to people! This has tailed off somewhat now, perhaps he realises that things aren't so rosy.

Could we talk to the solicitor who drew up the will about where our rent should go? Would we have to pay for this, would it come out of the estate? I'm really worried about him finding out that we've been doing things behind his back and making everything much worse but I don't just want to take his word for things. I also don't want him to let slip to the mortgage company that the current tenants are also the beneficiaries because I don't know whether that would invalidate her mortgage agreement or cause a lot of extra problems.

So, just to get this straight in my head, he is going to call the mortgage company tomorrow to see the options with the mortgage being frozen until probate is granted. He did tell them who has been named as the new owner of the house but couldn't give them a timeframe for things because we didn't know when we would get the death in service benefit. He says they have now sent a letter asking what is happening because there is no real plan in place, just a freeIng of the mortgage for now until they get further information. My husband is going to call the pension company tomorrow to see when the payout will happen. I am hoping he will tell them our house is wrapped up in this (they actually asked if there were any things to take into account since its unusual for one person to get the benefit and another to get the pension, but have said they are of a mind to carry out her wishes. They sent the same letter to her husband, I think pretty much asking whether he wants to dispute this. He says he is going to send a letter saying that's fine so I think it should be ok) and see whether that will speed things up a little. Even if the mortgage company do agree to freeze the mortgage for a few months tomorrow, i still need to sort out the rent issue, but that has nothing to do with the mortgage company, since they don't deal directly with tenants. Is that correct? Which means that this could be sorted out in the future even if the mortgage company do agree to freeze the mortgage for a few months.

[titchy]

All he needs to do is open an executors account, then your rent and money due from car insurance can be paid into that.