Impact on will - mum died, dad has awful new partner ...

[ladypineapple]

Mum died four years ago and her estate was left to myself and my siblings. Dad instigated a "Deed of variation" to pass all the assets to him rather than to us so that he could do some clever inheritance tax planning. We duly signed it. He then met a new woman, literally weeks later, and the fall out from that has been awful. None of us are ready to accept her and as a result we are struggling to keep things pleasant between us. If dad dies, and he chooses to leave all of his estate to her, can we claim the part we signed away, mums part ? None of us sought legal advice when we signed that deed, and never foresaw this happening.

Oh dear. It sounds as though your father asked you to give your mother's estate to him so that her IHT spousal exemption would pass to him. This would be a good idea if their joint estate was worth more than £650,000 - was it?

If not, then there was no good reason not to pay the estate straight to you and your siblings, although it would be unusual for a spouse to make no provision for their survivor, and could have led to your father making a claim for reasonable provision. Without knowing the ins and outs, I'm speculating.

If your father marries his new partner and doesn't make a will, then she will automatically inherit the first £250,000 of his estate plus a life interest in half of the remainder. You and your siblilngs will receive the other half of the remainder. Clearly this is not what your mother would have wanted, but you have shot yourselves in the foot by signing the deed of variation.

What's your relationship with your father like? If you can talk to him about this (I know it's not easy), I think you do need to say that you would like him to make a will giving at least your mother's estate to you. Of course he can do what he likes with "his" part.

Thank you mumblechum1. I think their house is worth more than 650k so maybe that was his thinking. I hate to bring this up with him but I know somehow I need to. Its hard to detach what I feel emtionally and try and have a rational conversation with him. My mum would be turning in her grave is she knew how he was behaving. I am hoping that maybe if his disinherits us (his kids), he may just leave it to the grandchildren as they are innocent parties in all of this.

Don't live on hopes of anybody doing the 'decent thing'. My Father lied to us, cut us out of the French property he said we'd inherit and left everything to his 2nd wife who promptly met a new man 2 months after he died. She is now living with him. The Grandchildren got nothing. She threw out all his things, his photos and never asked us if we wanted anything. All the valuable items were given to her friends.

Talk to him. Be straight. Or write to him. But never rely on hope. People do stupid things when they meet new people.

I think that, rather than asking him directly perhaps you should suggest that he takes legal advice on what he should do, particularly bearing in mind the deed of variation.

I'm a will writer and if he came to me I would be advising him that there is a serious risk of litigation, in particular bearing in mind that you and your siblings didn't take legal advice (I'm shocked that your dad's solicitor didn't insist on it tbh),

I would then recommend that he leaves what would have been your mum's part of the estate to you and your siblings, and take care to express it in such a way that if he sells the current house part of the proceeds are ring fenced for his children.

There are several options open to him which would be fair to everyone.