I may well be shot down in flames so have namechanged, but I just felt like sharing my amusement at what looks like poetic justice following the death of my father last week. Sorry if this offends anyone - I am mourning for him but my feelings are a bit all over the place.
I always assumed there would be no inheritance from my father who was an ordinary working class man renting a flat with his second wife, with no owned property except a small shed-sized garden hut on rented land, which I was told years ago belonged to his wife anyway. She also owns a flat inherited from her parents which my younger half-brother lives in, but I never even entertained any thought of that as it belongs to her and my half-brother after her.
But after he died his wife brought up his estate and asked me to do my part in obtaining necessary forms etc. During the discussion she casually mentioned that there was a modest pot of joint savings which they had agreed would go to her after his death unless I wished to contest it. I just laughed and said of course not. But it turns out the estate may be rather larger than I ever imagined, consisting of possibly larger savings than she declared (she declared £10k), the hut which in fact is part of the estate and not hers only, and even potentially the flat which, while small, is in a prime location so might fetch £400k, easily.
What got me suspicious was that she was only talking about the estate as consisting of very modest savings of £10k or so, which divided between her and three surviving children would only yield 1-2k per child which is not worth fighting for, but what she didn't make clear was that the two properties are most likely going to count as part of their joint marital assets, and that she was trying to persuade me not to contest the fact that it would all go to her! Before anyone says anything this is in a different country where the widow does not automatically inherit everything if there are surviving children. And by the sounds of it he didn't make a will which would have been characteristic of my father who was very obstinate at not being forced to do anything and didn't want to even think about his death. I think her talking about 'contesting' is misleading as I don't think there is a will at all.
I'm not so desperate for the money as it won't be megabucks anyway, but it's the principle. I have two children who are my late father's only grandchildren so it does surprise me that they wouldn't even feature in my stepmother's calculations. We are not well off as a family while not on the breadline either. My older brother, however, who is a single man, is almost literally on the breadline after a very difficult childhood living with my father and his second wife and having multiple problems due to the trauma.
And while this is an already long tale just to point out that my stepmother and father had an affair and he left my mother and his two children for her, and she was already pregnant when they were still married. And while these things happen, they both went on to inflict much cruelty on us over the years, which has not exactly endeared them to me.
Anyway, my stepmother is carefully manoeuvering away and I think trying to butter me up, but it is increasingly beginning to look like the state will not let her simply claim everything but that we, the surviving children, will see the extent of the estate in due course and can then make up our minds as to what we do. I already said to her that I thought it would only be fair that the proceeds from the sale of the hut would be divided between the four of us.
Apologies for the sketchy details, I'm really not clued up about these things!