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

As far as I understand it, the law in England means that you should be able to leave your estate to whomever you please, and no obligation to bequeath anything to relatives. At least I think that used to be the case. I remember a few years back a daughter contested her mothers will leaving everything to the cats home, and I think she won. I was a bit surprised because I think it was against all precedent.

Having your day in court is grossly overrated.

I think it is grim to think people have to visit just to get their inheritance though.
But it isn't their inheritance, it is the property of the deceased to have distributed as he/she wishes.

He was shitty to them because they were shitty to him.

Serves them right.

No one is owed an inheritance.

You make “their inheritance” sound like a God given right?
Imagine, having to actually get on with the person you’re expecting huge wads of cash from.

That's literally what inheritance is.

Is there not an obligation on lawyers not to take on ridiculous unwinnable cases? There should be. I don't have much expertise, but if they'd posted on MN, I'd have told them they couldn't win.

That's correct. There are some ways by which you can contest a will but it's very rarely worth it. Your best chance is if you can prove the person wasn't acting of their own true free will, as these women attempted to do, because if they were fully compos mentis, there's very little further scope. You say what you want and it's accepted.

1. Grandchildren/great-grandchildren. If you die intestate, your grandchildren and great grandchildren will not inherit any of your estate unless one of the following criteria is met:

• The child’s parent or grandparent died before you.
• The child’s parent is alive when you die, but dies before reaching the age of 18 and is not married or in a civil partnership.If either of the cases above, the grandchildren and great grandchildren will inherit an equal share of the amount their parent/grandparent would have received.

In either of the cases above, the grandchildren and great grandchildren will inherit an equal share of the amount their parent/grandparent would have received.

https://www.graysons.co.uk/wills-estates-trusts/intestacy-rules/#receive

She lost that case on appeal.

Charities are merciless when chasing legacies.

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-39278921

If he'd died intestate, they would have been entitled to their father's share.

Those are the rules when you die without a will. Which he did not. When you die without any clearly stated wishes about your estate, blood and legal relationships are used as a proxy for what you are presumed to have wanted. An actual statement of your wishes trumps that.

My mistake

Yes, my mistake.

Luckily he had a will, and they got exactly what he wished

Good!

yes - we know that, my post was in reply to "Had he died intestate, they'd have got absolutely nothing."

Ha ha ha this made me laugh

I have a friend who’s a litigation lawyer and he says he talks probably 75% of people out of it. His key question is “what does success look like for you?” And often it’s a case of “ I just want them to admit they were wrong” or “ I just want them to apologise” and he’ll then tell them that they may not get that even if they win.

Isnt it due dilligence. They should have been told the legal fees exceed any expected win.
Well they are all in debt each to the tune of 60k. Idiots. Hope hes laughing in heaven.

I think it is grim to think people have to visit just to get their inheritance though. I think it’s grim to think that being family automatically entitles you to someone’s money.

Funny how they weren’t so prepared to be family when there wasn’t any talk of money eh?

As for the father would have inherited and they would have got the money anyway, says who? The father might have lived for another 20 years and spent the lot, or needed to spend it to go into care.

People need to realise that inheritance isn’t a right.

My parents had a neighbour who didn’t have children but she had nieces who never visited ever. She had MND and after she died the nieces suddenly materialised to clean the house, to make it ready for sale because they (thought) they were going to inherit all her money.

She left the lot to charity and they didn’t get a penny. Good for her.

Why should people give money in death to someone who was never there for them in life?

OK, receive money from the estate of a deceased relation.

So the maximum they would have got if the estate had been split as they expected was £33,000 and now they each have to pay legal costs of at least £44,000 hahahaha

I think it’s rather sad that a grandfather makes living his grandkids money conditional on them visiting him.

But why should he care about leaving money to people he rarely saw or heard from?

He didn't say "visit me and I'll give you money" though.

If they didn't care enough to visit him, why should he leave them anything at all? I wouldn't want to leave money to people who didn't care about me.