my brothers contesting my mothers will i have a question

[masterofdoomv1]

he has claimed that i bullied our mother to leave me the house and claims that there was a previous will saying he was to get half the house and me half but i wasnt told anything about this even if true he claims this will was made in the late 1990s and since then he had no relationship with our mother until two years ago when he became ill due to drinking and needed a liver transplant he was kept informed before this of our mothers and fathers falling healing due to illnessess they both had but didnt bother.

his lawyer is asking for details of gp social work and carers so they can check records and i wondered if this takes weeks or if it takes months as i feel like a nervous wreck being there for our our parents for the last two years of theyre life which was difficuilt and not getting any support from family members now theres money involved theyre interested all of a sudden and im tired of the whole thing it seems to be constant

I would say your brother is hoping to wear you down, or bully you into handing him money.
Leave him to pay a solicitor, it’ll cost him thousands. It is very difficult to contest a will successfully but a solicitor will tell him otherwise at it’s money for them.

Cocomarine theres six sons including myself the other 5 werent disinherated ive stated that that theres £30000 and after lawyers fees were paid for helping deal with estate that would have left several thousand to be split dont forget this was parents money theyre choice what they did with it why should they be forced to give it to adults theyve had no relationship for decades yet thats what this brother is claiming whose contesting will that ive forced them to leave me the house go figure the one thats been there looked after the parents is greedy and selfish the ones who sat back and did nothing are victims these same brothers have claimed i did nothing as there were carers involved and reminded me im adopted inferring that im not a real member of the family go figure huh

coc my brothers made theyre choices as well lets not pretend theyre saints or faultless they knew where there mother was sat back chose not to get in touch and not help when advised of ill health yet now theyre gone they have all these rights regarding money and house laughable

Get a solicitor to act for you immediately or ask the Executor to do it ( I am pretty sure that the legal fees can be deducted from the estate before it is paid out) Probate etc takes some time so don't expect it to be cleared up early.
Put all your info clearly with a timeline if you can... the consultation will reveal what your situation is.
The solicitor will write to your Bro and tell him all communication must go through him ( this will save you from upsetting contact) Plus the solicitor will know whether you are obliged to answer any of these questions. And if your Bro is talking rubbish, the solicitor will know how to respond. Plus he is more likely to take the solicitor's word for it than you and the solicitor will make sure that all the handling of the will is watertight and can be proved to be in compliance with the law. Best of luck.

@masterofdoomv1

Cyw2018 and that attitude annoys me that its brought up about the rights of other sons they were all informed of theyre mothers ill health yet made the decision to sit back and do nothing where was theyre duty of care for theyre parents yet now theyre mothers passed away shes obliged to give them thousands?

You're demonstrating here that you feel entitled to your parents money.

As I said before you need to separate these two issues. I don't know you or your family, to know whether you were in a better position to easily care for them or if you were treated differently or better than your siblings in childhood, or any other family dynamics.

Many people care for their family with no inheritance on the horizon, parents living in council housing for example, or they care for their parents only for them to need expensive residential care at the end and to spend the majority of assets on that.

The issue of you caring for your parents and the probate of their will are independent issues.

If your brother wants it investigated now, then surely this is better than them popping up at a later date when you have already spent the money and accusing you of fraud.

Your mom abandoned two of her kids and disinherited them. That is really awful. No wonder they have issues.

Cyw2018 i dont feel entitled at all ive said in a previous post that i advised my parents to spend as much of theyre money on themselfs as they could before theyre health deteriated as for house i told them not to feel obligated to leave it to me as said theyre choice i wasnt even present when will was written up the only ones who have a sense of entitlement are those who sat back and did nothing

Josette77 i agree my mother had her faults and i dont defend that like i said those two along with her sons were entitled to several thousand pounds each its not like ive sat here demanding everything for myself

Oh come, you can’t really say they haven’t been disinherited!
£27K split 6 ways after fees is hardly comparable to the value of their entire house.
And in any case Scottish law entitles them to share half of that (moveable) anyway, so that part isn’t even left by their mother.
So she’s given you a house and him £2250.
I’d call that disinherited to all intents and purposes even if it’s not the strict legal definition.

You’re coming at this that you’re owed this house as pay back for being the one in their lives and the one to have provided some of their care. Of course, you don’t need to justify being owed it - it was your mother’s to give.

You assume that your brother is motivated by greed. Maybe, maybe not.

6 children. Several off the rails. One an alcoholic. 2 your mother dropped contact with. 3/4 siblings that you share with your father, didn’t want to go to his cremation. I reckon there’s a massive back story here.

Maybe it’s greed motivating him, maybe it’s anger that he wants something from them.

Odd that your parents have used the same solicitor since the 80s yet never made a will until 4 years ago, especially with such a complicated family.

But, they did. It doesn’t sound like you have anything to worry about legally.

“ those two along with her sons”

That’s a horrid thing to say! Those two? Along with her sons? They are her sons!!!
Even if she decided to drop them like they weren’t.

But, they did. It doesn’t sound like you have anything to worry about legally.

This, but for someone who declares that they are not behaving in an entitled way OP seema very inpatient to get their hands on this money, and for someone who declares that the will was 100% above bored they seem very anxious about it being contested.

OP if it has all been done in a transparent and legal way, just sit back and wait for the money to arrive in your account at whatever point the solicitors are ready to transfer it.

Cocomarine ill clarify things to put it into perspective this brother whose contesting the will was 30 when he CHOSE to leave the home because of his drinking habits, his behaviour and bringing strangers home he took no responsabillity said that our parents forced him to leave him and CHOSE not to have a relationship with them he was kept informed of our parents health - fathers parkisons and mother having copd and father having a heart attack and mother having a stroke he CHOSE again not to go visit them in hospital after having said he would then lied and claimed that he wasnt told about heart attack or stroke this partner then got in touch a couple of years ago with myself not because of his parents health but because his partner himself had health issues due to drinking which he had been warned about years prior i encouraged our mother to get in touch with brother and thats when they started speaking again yet this same brother has accused me of bullying our parents into leaving the house to myself says a lot i tried doing the right thing and im the jerk im seflish and greedy and entitled yet apparantly theyre all blameless laughable

Cocomarine whats horrid exactly i see them as her sons which is more than can be said that they do me saying im adopted emplying im not really a member of the family why am i defending myself your clueless

Cyw2018 im not impatient at all just think its a slap in the face by family members that did bugger all

You’re very angry with your brother.
I understand that.
Frankly, he sounds like a total arsehole, and alcoholics are no fun.

If this was just you and your brother, I’d have just thought, “yeah - what a selfish dick!”

But there are 6 adult children here.
2/6 were dropped by their mother.
3/4 of the father’s children didn’t want to go to his cremation.
4/5 who are not the arsehole alcoholic have been similarly cut out of the will
5/6 (I think?) did not see their sick parents

And the 1 that did is adopted, which can bring in a different dynamic in their relationship with their parents.

This isn’t one rogue selfish arsehole. Yes, only one is contesting it. But 5/6 have serious issues with their parents.

Which is why I think it’s possible that the alcoholic’s motivation isn’t simply greed. Could be recognition, or wanting pay back.

Like I said, clearly a massive backstory.

Cocomarine one was cut off because of his actions as an adult doing things such as mugging an old woman breaking into houses stealing cars etc and no this wasnt my mothers fault as hes the only one who got in bother with police and the other was a compulsive liar you couldnt believe a word he said the two sons that stayed with theyre father mums first husband and she chose not to have a relationship with that was on our mother and in no way at all do i defend her but as for the rest theyre not saints they made theyre own poor choises theyre responsible for them

@masterofdoomv1

Cocomarine whats horrid exactly i see them as her sons which is more than can be said that they do me saying im adopted emplying im not really a member of the family why am i defending myself your clueless

Is isn’t your place to “see” them as her sons. They are her sons!!!

What I think is horrid is your language - saying “those two” and then “along with her sons” reads that you don’t consider them her sons, really.

That said, I do find some of your phrasing hard to follow, so perhaps it was innocently said that way. The language we choose does say a lot.

How old were your half brothers when she lost touch with them?

Cocomarine as i am her son too bad they dont see it that way that theyve accused me of bullying not doing anything for theyre mother by saying it was carers that did the work and that im not really a member of the family as im adopted anyways i wanted advice im not going to sit here and be made out to be the bad guy in all this and defend myself bye all

Tell your brother to read the story of Jarndice V Jarndice in Charles Dickens Bleak House.

@masterofdoomv1, I think you're being given a bit of a hard time here and you don't deserve it. It's easy for pp to say all the DC should inherit equally but why should they? Until the moment they died, that house and money was your DP's and they were intitled to spend every last penny- they made it, they get to deceide who inherits it.

Hang on in master - honestly in years to come when your life is good and the property you inherited has made you secure with savings and a good future it will be worth the horrible hassle now.
Don't give way to them.

Perhaps write down all the help you gave DPs, and all the lies DB is making up. Once it's written down it won't go round and round in your head. So less stressful.

@Daleksatemyshed literally no-one on this thread has said that all 6 children should inherit equally, morally. Some have opined that he might have some claim, most of us have said it sounds like he’s pissing in the wind.

But morally? I’d say the two older sons that the mother didn’t bother with after she left them with their father on divorce have just as much right to the same value share as OP. In recompense, perhaps. That’s not a legal position though.

@masterofdoomv1

Cyw2018 and that attitude annoys me that its brought up about the rights of other sons they were all informed of theyre mothers ill health yet made the decision to sit back and do nothing where was theyre duty of care for theyre parents yet now theyre mothers passed away shes obliged to give them thousands?

Call me cynical but having read some of your other posts I find it hard to believe everything you say about your parents situation. You say you have lived with them for 20yrs,presumably rent free as you are on benefits.Methinks you doth protest too much about doing all the care work for them.I wonder what all your brothers stories about the situation would be!!!

As long as the will was drawn up properly and witnessed I would think he would be wasting his money . The illness’s you have mentioned does not mean that there was any reason why your parents were not capable of making a will .

@Cocomarine, I understand your point of view that morally it would have been kind to try and make up to her two oldest sons by leaving them something extra in her will. I think the problem here is, as always, we only get to read a snapshot of someone's life- we have no idea why their DM felt the need to leave her sons, things were very different years ago and women could have very few options.
My DF had a DD from his first marriage who he had no contact with for years, since his death I've been in contact with her and met up and given her some of our DF's personal items which she wanted, not his money, she wanted to feel connected. It would be a lovely idea for the Op to do something similar