Granddaughters left with £200,000 legal bill after arguing over £50 inheritance

[SerendipityJane]

Pretty certain there was an Ealing comedy about this ....

https://metro.co.uk/2024/05/21/granddaughters-angry-getting-50-will-now-face-200-000-legal-bill-20878694

Good, let it be a lesson to all the grabby CF’s when it comes to inheritance.

This is why you don't contest a will. Nobody wins but the lawyers. It takes a special kind of arrogance to take it this far, though.

See also: boundary disputes.

That is absolutely glorious comeuppance.

That's one expensive lesson.

Best thing for them.

I often hope the same happens to the grabby CFs who post on here trying to get their grubby mitts on every penny they can.

Oh dear . Perhaps they should have been advised better

Oh dear, that's one episode of Can't Pay We'll Take It Away that I wouldn't want to miss.

They clearly never read Bleak House

Or the advice their lawyers gave them.

LOL.

What utter idiots.

The estate was £500k (relatively small to challenge) and it seems like quite a few beneficiaries so the sums they could have won would have been relatively modest. Bizarre they even bothered.

I don't think it's clear cut.

Their father died and his share should have gone to his children.

If their father hadn't died, we can assume he would have inherited and, in turn, would have left whatever remained of the money to his kids.

It seems pretty shitty behaviour of the grandfather to cut out his deceased son's children.

The girls' father had died before the grandfather - it had been agreed previously that his third would go to the five gc.
The aunt and uncle instead got 250k each and the latter seems to have been a prick about it.

So grandchildren can just not give a shit about you in life and demand your money when you die? The man made a will. It was honoured. They were being grabby and found out it doesn't always pan out. Good.

I thought that must have been a typo made by the OP. Surely they meant to put a K onto that £50... but no, it really was five lots of tenners 😱😱

I think it is grim to think people have to visit just to get their inheritance though.

There's nothing uplifting in this story. If they all got along it would never have come to this, presumably.

A family I know contested the will and ended up with way less than they would have got if they had waited a few years! Idiots!

Why should his share have gone to the children? He died before his father, so didn’t actually inherit.

Not really.... Depends what the will says.

Oh dear what a shame. CFs.

Their father died in 2015. The grandfather then made a new will in 2018 leaving those 5 grandchildren out of it. From the sounds of it these grandchildren didn't bother with him in the last few years of his life, so he decided to leave them nothing - good for him.

Never underestimate how grabby some people are.

I think it's grim that people expect to inherit merely by virtue of a blood relationship.

It's perfectly legal to disinherit DC, much less DGC, in England. It's also perfectly rational to prefer family members you have a relationship with over family members you don't in inheritance. The DGF left clearly stated and deliberate wishes (hence the token £50 bequests, to show he had deliberately considered what he wished to leave to each of them). Why should a court overturn his perfectly legal, clearly stated wishes, purely because he had the misfortune to share some DNA with grabby idiots?

Doesn't matter what was previously agreed.

What matters is what is in the will..

Had he died intestate, they'd have got absolutely nothing.