Death without a will and co habitation

[RonaldMcDonald]

What happens nowadays if you die without having made a will and you were co habiting?
This has happened to my friend.
He has made financial provision for his children but has made no new will since he started to co habit with his new girlfriend
She says that she gets 2/3s of the money and the children the rest split between them
Sounds a bit unfair as his kids are young

Any ideas? She has called the insurance co to tell them she is the next of kin.
Help if poss would be v gratefully received
Ta

those who have suffered from the loss of the insured person's future income. so in this case, the cohabiting girlfriend is probably the biggest loser

Really? She was working, had her own house, and it was a relationship of only 2 yrs. His children are surely far more the 'losers' in financial terms (before we even start on their emotional loss)

As O P was executor of the old Will things might have gone differently if GF hadn't claimed her executor position under the false claim of another Will. I would say that's fraudulent.

I am not a legal person btw.

The girlfriend presenting herself as executor should not have any bearing on the trustee's decision. There is no such thing in law as next of kin so that is also irrelevant. I can't see anything that says she pretended he had written a new will, only that she said there was no will. As the will is not something the trustees usually consider that is also irrelevant.

I do not think the trustees have made their decision based on her false pretences. They have looked at the situation as it was at the time of death. A portion of the deceased's income would have been going to support his children. The bulk of his income would have been shared with his girlfriend.

If he had 3 or more children the CSA maintenance calculation would have been 25% of his income in child maintenance with the remaining 75% of his income being his to share with his girlfriend. On that basis the trustees may have regarded it as reasonable to split the insurance money in the same proportions.

OK but you could say she falsely presented herself as executor whilst denying there was a will and misleading other parties about her rights as cohabitee.

I understand now about the 75/25 split and that the insurance payout is entirely separate, is based on future dependency, as children grow up and become independent themselves and don't share finances with their parents over time like a partner does.

If she had consulted with the ex first we probably wouldn't be here discussing this at all!

Tbh executor is not a pleasant job anyway, just a lot of work and responsibility at a time when you just want to grieve.

OP, please don't think that you don't have any further recourse; if this is a payout from an employer's pension scheme, there will be a disputes process where you can challenge the decision. It's possible that the trustees made the decision based on incomplete or incorrect information (so, the new g/f represented herself as financially dependant). It's also entirely possible that she shouldn't have been considered as a beneficiary at all - most pension scheme rules are very wide, and would include those who are financially dependent, but not all include financial co-dependency. Financial dependency means exactly what it says on the tin - g/f would have needed to have been completely reliant on your friend to provide her with all of the "ordinary necessities of life", so food, shelter, clothing, bills. Financial co-dependency is much wider, but just sharing a house/joint bank account might or might not cut it.

I agree that the trustees may have been taking the view that the children would have been adequately supported with a quarter of the total amount; however, it's likely that they reached that conclusion on the basis of information given by the g/f, which they didn't challenge. They had a duty to make proper enquiries, and it doesn't look as though they did that.

Also, although a death in service benefit can be a huge amount of money, in practice the discretion to distribute it might well be delegated to an administrator, rather than being considered by the full trustee board. The speed of the decision suggests this might have happened here. Delegation is fine where the situation is uncomplicated and the trustees just want the widow and children to have the money quickly. This doesn't sound like an uncomplicated situation.

I can't give you advice on this, because I don't have the full picture; I know what you've said on the thread, but I (and you) don't know what the g/f has told the trustees. There is a charity called TPAS (the Pensions Advisory Service) who help with disputes, and who can make further investigations, and support you if you want to appeal to the Pensions Ombudsman (which is free). Don't know how to do links, but they're easily googleable.

And I'm very sorry for the loss of your friend. He sounds like one of the good guys.