To ask WWYD re inheritance

[littleteethies]

I'll try to keep this as brief as poss, more of a WWYD I think
DM and DF bought a house 20 years ago (v nice location, meant for their retirement) months before DM passed away (v sudden and unexpected). DF met someone else (let's call her W from witch) v soon after (months) and again v soon after that he retired, sold his business interests and moved in with W into said house.
I did find it all rushed at the time but I was 20 hrs old, devastated after losing DM and just wanted DF to be happy. There was never any conflict between me and W, quite the opposite, although as the years went by I came to realise she was very selfish towards DF and just not a nice person.
About 5 years ago, DF's health deteriorated and I believe he and W have arranged wills. In a casual convo they told me that the agreement is that the surviving partner gets to remain in the house until their death, at which point it will be sold and split equally between me and W's son.
I had no objection whatsoever, my main concern was DF getting better and I even refused to talk about wills and inheritance and things like that. The justification was that W has sold her property whilst living with DF and given DF half the value of the house - I find this vv hard to believe as DF also sold another 2 properties whilst with her (again bought together with DM), had a pension and still worked; there's no way he could have spent all that money. But as it was now her home as well I felt that was the right thing to do.
My DF passed away too a couple of years ago, it completely floored me and the last thing on my mind was this house. Before the funeral she told me it would cost £8k to "read the will" and as we already know what their agreement was, there is no point to waste so much money.
I kept in v close contact with W, mainly because I felt she was a kind of link I had with DF's memory but as months went by this link started to fade and she became somewhat disinterested. However every time I went to see her, take her out for lunch etc she made a point of telling me how her son has given her money for various home improvements and generally pointing out many negatives about the house - they all seemed if not made up, then greatly exaggerated.
This made me somehow suspicious so one day over lunch I've casually asked to see DF's will. All hell broke loose, she started screaming at me, calling me names and stormed off. Just like that.
She has not spoken to me since, although bar a birthday card and a card for an anniversary, I've made no attempt either. I have though searched online and there is no will logged with DF's name; I've also looked up land registry records and the house has been in her name since 2003 (I presume DF's name was also on it and taken off).
I guess my question would be If there's anywhere to go from here? If the house is now solely in her name and I don't have a copy of DF's will, does that mean I have no claim whatsoever? Is there any point paying a solicitor?
It's hell of a lot of money to say goodbye to, but what kills me is it's the house DM bought and envisaged retiring in and this nasty woman got everything DM didn't have a chance to. And why didn't I say anything to DF at the time, but that's another thread.

I am so sorry you are going through this. But I wish you all the luck in the world and I hope you find a ferocious solicitor who brings the bitch witch down! I am cheering for you!!!

Obviously what I said was based on the OPs opening post ! Now she has made the discoveries she has it’s def worth chasing up . My answer was based on our family experience my uncle spent thousands challenging the will which was for a substantial sum of money / bungalow in s London etc an she got nowhere .

I'm no expert but haven't the bank massively fucked up here? Surely if you're not married and claiming there's no NOK you have to go through the intestacy process to get access to accounts?

Challenging a well drafted, properly probated will is hard indeed. One of the few avenues to do so is by challenging the competency of the deceased when the will was made or changed. It's now routine with large estates for the lawyer to have a doctor examine the client to render a judgement on competency and to video record the client discussing his or her intentions for the will so that the recording can be used to fend off a challenge.

Similarly if you want to leave someone out of your will who would normally be expected to receive something, instead of omitting them completely you leave them an insultingly small sum so that they can't later argue that they were simply forgotten.

This thread is wonderful.

What?! This thread is anything but wonderful. It's awful and I can't imagine the mount of stress OP must be under right now trying to unravel her late father's affairs in the face of someone who looks likely to have screwed her over.
OP I'm really rooting for you and hope you get what is rightfully yours.

@HappenedForAReisling Wonderful in the sense that W appears to have been caught out. She probably thought that she'd gotten away with it...

If there is no trace of a certificate on probate website, she hasn't even done probate it becomes public documentation once probate is completed usually takes them 3-4 months & a copy can be bought for £10, if he past in 2013 then nobody has done it, your problem here is probate cannot tell you anything, they can't even tell you if its in probate now if you ring the, but still worth giving your local probate a ring (number can be found online) & explain situation & that glhe passed in 2013 & you can't find a clletter online & what they advise is, also if the will wasn't properly excuteed for many reasons a will can be invalid & counts for nothing, & the fact is by law if there was no will or will was invalid then estate comes under the laws of intestacy meaning if married the spouse inherits everything if they are not as in your case then his children will (not stepchildren) just blood children & adopted children inherit an equal share in all of the estate even personal items would of been yours, even if he didn't own half the house anymore there are other things that factor in like if he had life insurance etc, & someone needs to volunteer to be the administrater of the estate, there is a will & its valid you really need to view it & not take this women's word & insist whoever is named as executor/executors in the will get probate done even if its just for tax reasons/debt it needs to be done even if he had nothing to his name, the £8000 is nonsense costs afew hundred pounds to do the probate application other than that there are no costs, your free to ring around all solicitors though to see if your father had a account with them & if a will was drawn up, do you know how the funeral was paid?

Also she may not be being dodgy this is one law I do not like, but if there was a will & your father left it all to W and named her as excutor of his estate then sadly she dosent have to show you or inform you of anything to do with the will, only thing that raises my suspions here is that she never got probate sorted & informed bank there was no will & no nok that's a biggie, you either have to let it go or keep digging around I'd have to do the latter, but if it does come to it that she has committed fruad then it can be costly to take to court

Also consider his pension. It may have stopped on his death, passed to a beneficiary (ie W) or next of kin.

If he was useless at sorting these things out maybe she has something to gain there to.

But if there was a will and it left everything to her, it would need to go through probate, and there would therefore be a record. Best case scenario is that she's evading inheritance tax, but we already know she's dodgy as she lied to his bank about there being no NOK.

And also lied to land registry can get op’s late father off the deeds.

I would suspect either will wasnt executed and so invalid or it left too much to op in trust and W didnt like that.

W would have little to hide from a properly executed will in her favour except as you say, iht

This is an awful situation for you OP, it must be very distressing but you are doing the right thing.

Lawyer here, though not my area. You DEFINITELY need legal advice from a specialist solicitor asap. I second a PP who recommended finding one through the Society of Trusts and Estates Practitioners (STEP) and gave a link to their website.

I would also get back to the bank ASAP with your ID or whatever they require and find out as much as you can, as soon as you can. You probably only have one decent shot at this. If you can, go into the bank and see someone in person. Don't wait until you have an appointment with a solicitor. You have a better chance (in my experience) as an individual with a personal and legitimate concern of hearing/seeing/being given information at this early stage which may become 'unavailable' once it all becomes official and is being conducted via solicitors' letters and official procedures.

If the figures in the bank were low – less than £5,000 – then the bank may not have raised too much of an eyebrow when she said there was no next of kin. Obviously, anything in a joint account will have gone to her (same as if the house was joint tenants). Anything more than £5,000 (approx, depends on the bank in question) and they would most likely have asked to see a grant of probate, which we know she doesn't have. Just some info when you are weighing up how much money to spend on sorting this out – I'd focus your first bit of solicitor money on establishing whether you have a claim on the house.

When you see a solicitor it will be helpful to have as much info as possible to give them including evidence of the will. Your father obviously did make one because (a) he told you so, (b) when he died she referred to the cost of having it 'read' ie submitted to probate and (c) she told you your uncle was an executor/trustee.

That original document ( I mean the one actually signed by your father and witnessed by 2 witnesses) may have been lodged with solicitors for safe-keeping but seems unlikely if, as it appears, she was unscrupulous and your father left her to handle all the legal stuff. The original may no longer exist because she has destroyed it. But there are various ways you can obtain evidence of its existence and its terms.

It seems likely that it was drafted by solicitors, given the relative complexity of your father's and W's financial affairs. Those solicitors should keep that file for 7 years and in there will be copies of that draft.

For a will to be valid it has to be signed by the person making it (the testator) in the presence of 2 witnesses who then sign in the presence of the testator and eachother - ie all 3 have to be together in the same room at the same time. The witnesses can be executors of the will but not beneficiaries (or married to beneficiaries). Quite often the solicitor who drafted the will or a member of their staff will witness it if the signing takes place in their office. Otherwise friends or neighbours of the testator often act as witnesses. One possible witness might be your uncle but you don't trust him and the fact that he was hostile when you started asking questions might even suggest that he was indeed a witness and knows the will has been destroyed or ignored. So you can't ask him but it would be worth trying to think of any friends or neighbours who you could discreetly approach at the right time without fear of them alerting W.

It seems to me that it is always the fathers who don’t protect their children’s best interests in these situations. Sad really

It’s both ways. Leave everything to your spouse, and you risk your children get nothing.

If i die my half of the house goes to the kids, with dh having a life interest, and vice versa. We completely trust each other, but who knows who’ll be about when the surviving spouse dies, and as we see so often, wills often aren’t updated, or can be changed.

My dad died relatively young, intestate. Everything went to my mum, who is utterly shit with money. She’s bought and sold a series of money pit houses, turning our family 3/4m home into a 2 bed flat, spending shitloads on “improvments” along the way. She’s on a widow’s pension of 40k, which she somehow isn’t able to live on.

When she dies there will be absolutely nothing left. From an estate which would be worth at least 1m by now had it been left alone. She even gave away all his personal belongings. I have a pair of socks that i had borrowed before he died, that’s it.

Not the case. My mum had some really convoluted plan for her will that would have been a complete disaster and she just trusted her (abusive, violent, selfish, alcoholic conman of a) husband to do the right thing. She got really angry when I brought this up but did change it so a slightly less convoluted but still nightmarish situation which meant I had to do two years of work to sort out the practical and legal stuff to enable us to sell her house, and he's still entitled to the rent from a smaller adjoined property for life that we own - we lost out hugely on the value of the house because of it (which she didn't anticipate) and she got horrible legal advice that basically meant her will wasn't on solid ground legally and if we had tried to argue it he could have totally screwed us over. But hey, he's sitting pretty now with the new woman he was already seeing while my mum was in the hospice

One possible witness might be your uncle but you don't trust him and the fact that he was hostile when you started asking questions

Uncle? Where does an uncle come in?

and some jewellery which she said she gave to his only brother - that's my uncle but he's a lot closer to her than he is to me, I wouldn't trust him as far as I could throw him

After DF passed away, I remembered her telling me my uncle was an executor? trustee? I rang him a few months ago to discuss but he told me it's none of his business and pretty much put the phone down

This is how the uncle comes in ^^

The stories on this thread are a huge cautionary tale to all of us to sort our affairs out and never to trust that others will do the right thing when it comes to money.

It might be an idea to bring 2 forms of photographic ID, like a driving licence/passport and another one with your maiden name on it. Bring your birth certificate that shows who your father is, and your marriage certificate, which shows you maiden name. All that should prove who you are and then you can get started on getting this affair sorted.

Definitely get a solicitor involved on your side, but on the quiet until you have solid evidence that your DF's GF has been acting illegally.

Anyway, I hope you get this sorted and also hope you keep us updated as regularly as possible.

Take care OP, and good luck. I've my fingers and toes crossed that it all gets sorted and you get what you are due.

Sorry, Missed that.

OP I've been reading this in snatched drips and drabs so not sure if I've missed some posts...

However, we had a similar problem, at least with regard to land that my father owned as tenants in common (and he owned the bigger share). A chance remark made many years down the line, somebody talking about 'their field' and my mother saying don't be silly, that's 'our field' and it leading to a big argument... As it was so long ago, ddad was dead (hence my mother inheriting it and it being listed in probate), the other tenant in common and their wife all being dead meant that on the other side at least, everything they believed about the land was what they had been told by loved ones and so to be shown evidence that this was not the case meant that it opened up big cans of worms for them.

Turned out that the solicitors that were supposed to notify the land registry of ddad's death and letting them know that my dad's share had passed on to Mum did so very belatedly and only told them of dad's death - didn't mention mum. So although there was a restriction on it, there were no names and it was all very curious. Then when other tenant died, the notification was sent in a timely manner and their wife was put on in his place (by the same solicitors). She managed to submit a solicitors declaration to say that she was the sole owner of the field and they accepted it. The solicitors firm that did this declaration were involved with my dad, the purchase of the field, submitting the forms regarding his death, they'd seen the probate documents where it was very clearly left to mum and had copies in their files, had been involved in negotiations after dad had died, they knew damn well that mum inherited dad's share of the field. But they were still happy to accept and ratify a declaration they knew to be untrue (or conveniently maybe they sent in a different individual who wouldn't have been aware of the history so that they could hold their hands up and say they didn't know - unfortunately those details have been lost in time), and they wouldn't tell us (data protection!) if they had done the document, let alone what reasons were in it for the person to now own the entire plot. sorry - years down the line and still winds me up - rant over now!

One of the first things I did was to ring the Land Registry and ask to talk to their fraud department. I spoke to somebody who was incredibly helpful and provided lots of useful information. He was able to look through the documents and tell me some info (that the solicitors were then able to order - but it was good to know they were there before going to solicitors. Only thing we weren't able to see was the actual declaration as to why the restriction was lifted - we could see the cover page and letter from the solicitors to say that they had been told and accepted the information to be true - but there wasn't the actual declaration so even now we don't know what they said to the solicitors! But at least we know who the scummy solicitors were. (and yes I know not all solicitors are bad, just these were a particularly bad lot).

It was also really difficult for mum because she needed to prove that she hadn't sold or given the plot to this person. And how do you prove that you haven't done something? Particularly when documents that you thought had been submitted by professionals many years previously hadn't been, making everything much more difficult.

She did manage to get her share reinstated in the end - but solicitors dragged it out, racked up fees and made it a much more expensive and unpleasant process than it should have been.

All a very long (sorry!) way of saying that it would be well worth your while to ring up the Land Registry and ask to speak to their fraud department - they were really helpful at pointing me in the right direction for starting to get things sorted out.

Any news OP? Have you managed to track down the solicitors?

Hope you’ll update us OP. We’re all rooting for you.

Have you found the solitor yet OP? Best of luck with it all.