Mr X has died : who gets the house?

[MySecret21]

Just after some advice please…

If Mr X dies and he lives alone in a property that he owns (no mortgage) what happens to the house?

He has two children but they are both under 18 and live with their mother. Mr X and their mother were never married and separated over 10 years ago.

The only other family Mr X has is his dad.

As Mr X’s children are below 18, will the house go to his father instead?

There is no written will so everyone is just speculating as to who decides what to do with the house and who gets what.

Thank you.

I assume it'll be the deceased's father who will look after the deceased's estate until the children are adults. They will inherit everything once they are of age. I don't think the mother will be appointed as trustee as she isn't married. Mr X's dad needs to see a solicitor.

Thank you for this. @Jax57 you are completely wrong in your ‘advice’ to the op. You clearly have no knowledge of legal inheritance law.

This article may be useful to your friend, OP.
"Without a will, your estate will pass in accordance with the laws of intestacy, and who is able to administer your estate is also governed by the intestacy rules. There remains a strict order of who benefits from the estate depending on family circumstances, and the right to manage the estate falls in accordance with this.

• You have to be 18 years or older to act as an administrator (the person who administers an estate without a will). In the event of minor children, who, but for their age, would be entitled to act, then the person with parental responsibility for the minor(s) would be entitled to take out the grant on their behalf."

https://www.thegazette.co.uk/wills-and-probate/content/103347 In this situation the mum would be acting on her minor children's behalf - the status of her relationship to the deceased and her lack of entitlement to inherit are neither here nor there, it's her relationship to the child beneficiaries that puts her in the frame for the burden of administering the estate. Hideously awkward situation at a time when the grandfather is grieving and mum and the children will going through a lot of difficult emotions. I hope she and the grandad can work it out together.

My thoughts exactly

Yup.
Make wills, people, and talk them through with the nominated executors so everything is clear.

Obviously, I don't know your personal circumstances and you may not have any close relatives omitted from your Will, but my DP's solicitor used this particular example:

A daughter had been estranged from her father for many years and as a consequence wasn't left anything in his Will. She contested the Will and not only did the judge decide she was entitled to a fair share of his estate, but also her court costs were taken from the estate.

This is why when my DP made his Will, his solicitor advised that he included an in-depth statement as to why he didn't want any of his children to inherit. Incidentally, a friend of mine has recently put her house in a Trust with her daughter as the Trustee. She doesn't want her son to make a claim on her estate and she also had to make an in-depth statement as to her reasons as otherwise it can be deemed that she has only done this to avoid any possible care home charges in the future.

Please tell me you didn't put your parents down and filled in the trust form they provide for your child

incorrect - anyone reading this should ignore this post

Mr. X hasn’t died yet.

He's definitely dead, it's just the way the OP has phrased her initial question that confused you.

Whoever told this poster that they had to name "next of kin" to get her pension pot was talking rubbish too.

Some of the comments on this topic prove the saying “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing” is so true.
I’d advise everyone to make a Will, no matter their circumstances.
I also think there should be a Will registration type service where every will is lodged.

I’m pretty certain the child should get everything. However I know someone who lost their partner and the child didn’t get anything it all went to his mum… so definitely look into it properly.

If this was in England and Wales, this would only be correct if he left a will leaving the money to his mother or if everything was in joint accounts / the house was held with her as joint tenants. Even then, your friend could have sued the estate on behalf of her child for reasonable provision.

If her partner died intestate (without a will) and his mother didn’t own his assets jointly, your friend’s child should have inherited and the mother had no right to the money (best case she didn’t understand the law, worst case she deliberately stole from her own grandchild).

Same in Scotland.

I suppose it's impossible to enforce a "do not post on legal issues unless you actually are qualified to do so" rule, but I see so much bad advice.

Goes to the children. I have encountered several situations like this; last time the house went to the 13 year old daughter from a teenage affair. No marriage involved. The deceased person's brothers, sisters and parents got nothing. Inheritance goes downward, not upward or sideways unless there are no next generation inheritors.

Something I find interesting is the belief that if someone did ‘A’ in regard to an estate, that means ‘A’ is correct. There are no probate police checking an estate is distributed correctly. If I as executor of my (hypothetical) great aunt’s estate decide she shouldn’t have left money to her cleaner and keep it, unless the cleaner:

1. Knows she is in the will
2. Challenges me legally

I would probably get away with it.

The same on intestacy - if the person actually entitled to inherit doesn’t legally challenge the person who gets letters of administration, the administrator of the estate can walk off with the money and nothing will be said. That doesn’t make it legally correct.

Laws of intestacy are applicable and passes to kids.

Well wills are public knowledge so people who reasonably expect to inherit will be able to find it and challenge. They can also be difficult and complex so it would take a lot of effort and expense to check that an estate is distributed correctly. To what benefit?

Not assuming theft until reported, just like any other theft is fine with me. While stealing is morally wrong. There are better uses of public funds than ensuring that some distant relation/unrelated person gets some free money. The person who owned it is dead, they're not affected by what happens to their earthly possessions.

@Porridgeinblankies most of the cases being discussed aren’t distant relatives, they are children or parents.

as for challenging, ot seems that the ex is only aware of Mr X’s death because the father got in touch. Otherwise she would’ve assumed he was alive for many years

This. If the grandfather had been dishonest or just wrong about the law like some of the posters confidently posting completely incorrect information on this thread, he could have taken the whole estate.

Someone who knows he doesn’t know will seek out information as the grandfather has done in this case, it’s the people who think they know but are wrong that are likely to screw things up (which is fairly terrifying as the executor / administrator can be held personally liable for compensating beneficiaries if the estate isn’t properly distributed).

In this case, the children might have found out years later if they tried to look up their father but if they’d never tried to contact him, it might never have occurred to them.

Since Mr X will presumably no longer be paying maintenance for his children, I'd have thought we would all want the burden of them on the state (ie us) reduced by inheritance before we start calling their mother out.

I mean...who hasn'tfantasized about being left a load of money by someone we aren't that much upset by the loss of? Distant great aunt we never met in Australia, Irish step cousin, that sort of thing?! My auntie - who earned it in regular visits, shopping trips, christmas invites etc over many decades - inherited not only a substantial amount off her long-standing elderly neighbour, but also a good sum extra when the (by now dead) neighbour was left something by some other distant relative.

But there is no obligation to do so is there?

Yes. Under the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. It can be summarised as:

The concept of reasonable provision is the idea that it’s necessary for someone to leave a reasonable financial provision in their Will for anyone who’s been financially dependent on them in the time leading up to their death.

An obvious example that most people would approve of is that a wealthy man paying child support for a 5 year old can’t shrug his shoulders and leave everything to the OW for whom he left his wife - the child has a claim on the estate.

It’s harder to establish with an adult but if there was any money, in this case where she was financially maintained by her mother, the OP’s mother might be able to make the argument. As there isn’t, it’s irrelevant.

An interesting note is that case law says that ‘reasonable provision’ for a spouse is the amount he/she would have got on divorce.

https://www.rochelegal.co.uk/news/what-is-the-concept-of-reasonable-provision-and-how-could-it-affect-your-legacy/#:~:text=What%20is%20reasonable%20provision%3F,A%20spouse%20or%20civil%20partner