Can you just ignore a will?

[Willadvice2021]

Help me understand this situation.

Adam, his brother and their cousin. Will call them Adam , Ben and Craig for the use of this situation.

Adam, Ben and Craig both live near their dad/uncle, like two/three streets away. Ben has always had an on/off relationship with his parents. Mostly off. Declaring them all dead to him fairly regularly over the years. Ben hates Craig, no real reason, I think he dislikes the fact Craig is so involved and included like another son.. Craig’s parents died many years ago.

A few years ago Ben had a bust up with everyone over Craig being there. He hit his mother causing her a split lip and brushing (she was very elderly) and a few days later when Adam tried to speak with him he pushed him and he fell and injured his head and shoulder against the wall. Ben said everyone was dead to him and walked out. Within days their mum had died, Ben was reached out to invited to the funeral but refused to attend or correspond with anyone. When Adam reached out he sent him a message, Ben replied he wanted no contact from the family and that was that. Ben has never been close with his father and made no attempt to contact him for several years.

Ben was in ill health before this happened and Adam and Craig were having to go in several times to a day to help him with self care, shopping, washing etc. After the death of their mother the situation meant that the care was significantly increased, Adam had to take early retirement and Craig reduced his hours to be able to help. Both were called all day and night and back. Adam in particular struggled a lot with the amount of burden and is having counselling. It was very difficult

At some point a few years back their dad rewrote his will with a solicitor. He was of sound mind right in until the end but his health was very poor. He decided to include Craig into the will and gave him and Ben both 25% and the remaining 50% to Adam. He wanted to write Ben out completely but Adam said he shouldn’t do that.

Their dad died. Ben was informed but again didn’t attend the funeral or make any attempt to contact. It has been years since he saw his dad.

Now Ben is contesting the will and asking Adam to take Craig out and just split it 50/50 between them. He has made several other additional requests for specific high value items. I’m surprised this is even the option. He says he has sought legal advice but I can’t understand how the can decide to ignore/bypass the will?

Added: There isn’t much to inherit, no money and house is worth probably 100,000.

Ignore him. Surely his solicitor will be in touch with the executor or other parties if he wants to contest the Will. He cannot ignore the Will. Who are the Executors. Has Probate been finalised, I dont think anything can be distributed until it's all settled.

The will needs to be executed exactly as written.

Those who inherit can do what they want with whatever they get.

Contesting a will is bloody expensive and usually pointless.

Who is the executor?

No you can't ignore a will. It's very clearly specified, and Ben has no chance whatever of winning any case. I'd ignore him and leave him to it. The first solicitor he approaches will make it clear that the chances of winning are vanishingly small, and it will cost him an arm and a leg.

Adam is the executor.

Ben has already contacted probate and put a stay on that process. Apparently he says he can keep doing that indefinitely.

Adam does have a solicitor but he was wanting details so Adam is doing that currently.

I just thought it was crazy that Ben is requesting with apparent legal advise their write Craig out. There was a previous will when both parents were alive but obviously that was before Ben hit his mother.

I suppose Ben could ignore it in that he could not respond to the solcitors' attempts to contact him in order to distribute his 25%.

Any of them could technically do the same, I suppose, unless they're executors?

And Adam could then give whatever he wants (of his share) to Ben, once it's all distributed and settled.

Is that a name change, OP?

This sounds absolutely exhausting, OP - you have my sympathies, assuming you are related to one or more of those involved, and having to deal with the fall-out of all this.

@saraclara

No you can't ignore a will. It's very clearly specified, and Ben has no chance whatever of winning any case. I'd ignore him and leave him to it. The first solicitor he approaches will make it clear that the chances of winning are vanishingly small, and it will cost him an arm and a leg.

Ben is saying that Adam will be responsible for the legal fees. He wrote that in both letters.

It seems a bit pointless threatening to out a hold on probate indefinitely as no one would benefit financially.

@CuriousaboutSamphire

Is that a name change, OP?

Yep 😂 reported myself. I'm not good at this 😆

He's written claptrap then.

www.wrighthassall.co.uk/knowledge-base/how-much-does-it-cost-to-contest-a-will

Have a read and leave him to it.

@Laquila

This sounds absolutely exhausting, OP - you have my sympathies, assuming you are related to one or more of those involved, and having to deal with the fall-out of all this.

I'm related to.

The executor/Adam can't just decide to do that, no, whatever his personal feelings about the fairness or unfairness of the will. The only reason would be if 'Craig' (who would be the main loser under 'Ben''s plan agreed to it freely and willingly. This can happen, I personally have been involved in a difficult situation in which an elderly relative 'wrote out' one of their children from a will, possibly acting under duress from a 3rd party, we never fully worked out what happened, but in that case all the beneficiaries bar 1 agreed to give the written out child back their original share - we did this via a deed of variation, obviously the one that didn't agree got their full share and the rest of us varied ours downwards to give the other child their fair portion. But we absolutely didn't have to do that, the will was legally valid and if we'd said no the written out child would have faced an uphill and lengthy court battle to try and get it overturned with very little prospect of success.

Re the valuable items, unless these are specifically mentioned in the will they will need to be valued and then distributed in fair shares once probate is granted. Again the beneficiaries can agree that one of them can receive the items as part of their 'share' (and can then give them to other family members, if they want), or if not they will have to be sold and the money divided up. So e.g. if as in your case the will is 50% to Adam, 25% to Ben and 25% to Craig, and the assets are in total worth £130k after any debts and bills are paid and costs and tax is deducted, made up of:

-House £100k
-Car £15k
-Antique Furniture £10k
-Jewellery £5k

Adam should get £65k as a share which could be £50k in cash from sale of the house plus the car, Ben should get £32.5k which can be £22.5k from the house plus the antique furniture and Craig should get £27.5k plus the jewellery (or however they want to divide it) OR everything is just sold and they all get their share in cash but ignore that for the sake of the example. Obviously if all 3 want the jewelry and can't agree, or there are sentimental items with little monetary value but everyone thinks should be theirs, it all gets a bit messy and this is where solicitors may have to get involved to ensure everything is done fairly and above board... my sympathy to Adam, seems like he's got a lot of stress on his plate as well as dealing with the death of his father!

@YesMeLady

It seems a bit pointless threatening to out a hold on probate indefinitely as no one would benefit financially.

Truthfully, I don't think Ben needs the money. He is doing pretty well, unlike Adam and Craig. Think he would happily drag it out as it's costing Adam to maintain the house.

We had similar when MIL died. The Contentious Party blustered for ages and was very vocal about it, it even made local news (MILs suicide was widely reported/gossipped about).

DH and his siblings chose the unusual step of explaining the real situation to everyone in the local pub. Contentious Party was never heard from again.

But we did have legal advice and they were very clear that hurt feelings was not a legal ground for ignoring the contents of a will. The family history, like yours, told its own story.

Dragging it out is pointless too, costs for maintaining the flat can come out of the Estate when Probate us finalised. Does Adam have a solicitor.

@maxelly

The executor/Adam can't just decide to do that, no, whatever his personal feelings about the fairness or unfairness of the will. The only reason would be if 'Craig' (who would be the main loser under 'Ben''s plan agreed to it freely and willingly. This can happen, I personally have been involved in a difficult situation in which an elderly relative 'wrote out' one of their children from a will, possibly acting under duress from a 3rd party, we never fully worked out what happened, but in that case all the beneficiaries bar 1 agreed to give the written out child back their original share - we did this via a deed of variation, obviously the one that didn't agree got their full share and the rest of us varied ours downwards to give the other child their fair portion. But we absolutely didn't have to do that, the will was legally valid and if we'd said no the written out child would have faced an uphill and lengthy court battle to try and get it overturned with very little prospect of success.

Re the valuable items, unless these are specifically mentioned in the will they will need to be valued and then distributed in fair shares once probate is granted. Again the beneficiaries can agree that one of them can receive the items as part of their 'share' (and can then give them to other family members, if they want), or if not they will have to be sold and the money divided up. So e.g. if as in your case the will is 50% to Adam, 25% to Ben and 25% to Craig, and the assets are in total worth £130k after any debts and bills are paid and costs and tax is deducted, made up of:

-House £100k
-Car £15k
-Antique Furniture £10k
-Jewellery £5k

Adam should get £65k as a share which could be £50k in cash from sale of the house plus the car, Ben should get £32.5k which can be £22.5k from the house plus the antique furniture and Craig should get £27.5k plus the jewellery (or however they want to divide it) OR everything is just sold and they all get their share in cash but ignore that for the sake of the example. Obviously if all 3 want the jewelry and can't agree, or there are sentimental items with little monetary value but everyone thinks should be theirs, it all gets a bit messy and this is where solicitors may have to get involved to ensure everything is done fairly and above board... my sympathy to Adam, seems like he's got a lot of stress on his plate as well as dealing with the death of his father!

Thank you. That makes a lot of sense.

When I say valuable items, I mean a ring worth £200, a collection of porcelain, think there are 8 items listed, basically they didn't have a lot, but he's stipulated are the only things of value. Which Adam and Craig aren't going to stop him having.

@YesMeLady

Dragging it out is pointless too, costs for maintaining the flat can come out of the Estate when Probate us finalised. Does Adam have a solicitor.

Yes, he has contacted someone and they wanted details with dates etc. Not given any advice yet. Highly recommend though. Adam has power of attorney, I think that's what it's called. Basically his Dad couldn't manage to leave the house at all, he was in bed for years, so he made Adam POA so that he could manage things for him.

Power of Attorney ceases when someone dies but Adam just needs to talk to his solicitor and take their advice.i would hold off giving anything away at this stage,

Ben is saying that Adam will be responsible for the legal fees.

He can say that but it doesn’t make it true. It’s very expensive and difficult to challenge a will and any decent solicitor would advise him against it in this case, as he has almost no chance of success. What he can do is bluster, harass and delay things, which will be stressful for Adam, but it will amount to nothing in the end.

when it comes to wills - personal feelings and who did whose shopping and cared for them most - is totally irrelevant its all about what was written in the will.

Thanks all. It's really helpful to know. Adam's solicitor didn't given any feedback and he's been preparing all the information for about a week. I think he's probably going a bit overboard. He's including copies of nursing reports etc from his mum to she the assault, and a few reports like his DNR that show he was of sound mind etc. To be honest I tend to go a little overboard with things too, but he keeps getting letters from Ben. Ben says his daughter, who did law and works in law (but not a lawyer) says certain things and their solicitor says certain things. It's getting Adam stressed and confused. It's been a really difficult few years for him.

As he's the executor he feels in a difficult position.

One of the requests from Ben is a collection things that their dad has already given away to other people, not Adam or Craig. But without making things awkward with that person there is no way of proving that.

So why did nobody report him to the police for assaulting somebody who died just a few days afterwards?

They could have committed murder, but nobody's lifted a finger.

@LickEmbysmiling

when it comes to wills - personal feelings and who did whose shopping and cared for them most - is totally irrelevant its all about what was written in the will.

Yep. My mum, an only child, cared for her parent on top of having a full time plus overtime demanding job, for many years. Her parent left everything to a charity. Will written only a year before her death, having been cared for by my DM for more than a decade.

There was still no legal basis on which to challenge it. Ben is deluded.

OP, the way your first post reads is that Ben hit his frail elderly mother during an argument, she was hospitalised as a result and then died a week or so later. If this is correct he should have been charged with either murder or manslaughter.