Relatives contesting will - advice needed

[Somethingsosimple]

DH recently lost his mum and is the executor of the will with his sister. He and his sister have been left the house and any money in savings left to his deceased sister's children. My husband and sister have told their 3 adult nephews and they are not happy. They believe that the house should be split 3 ways and that they should inherit their dead mothers share. We have children who were born after the will was made but they are not left any money which we accept. My husband is very upset that they are angry with this arrangement as he thinks his parents made the will in good faith. They made the will after his sister died. The nephews all stand to inherit around 20k each. The value of the house is £245,000. Please could I have other peoples thoughts.

Surely the difference would be minimal and not worth the legal fees and hassle the 3 nephews will incur challenging it?!

Imo the dn have been left what their dgm wanted them to have.
End of.
Entitled fuckers.

Not able to give any advice from experience or legal standing but I do they are being very insensitive at a time where they should be a lot more thoughtful. 20k is nothing to be sniffed at and is following the wishes of the will. How old are they out of interest?

I kind of see where they are coming from, in that, if their Mum was still alive, the house would have most likely been split 3 ways and the 3rd of that would be their inheritance from their mother.
However their grandmother has decided what she wanted to do with HER money and that is how it should be done.
I hate it when wills get contested. Drives me mad. Nobody is entitled to the money. Your Mil could have put it all to the dogs home. Her wishes should be met!

If the house and savings are added together (300k approximately), then divided by three for three siblings, then they would get 100k between them. So they would get 33k each. However, if they contest then the money to defend the will will come from the estate, so after a legal battle that they win they could actually come out with less than they are getting now.

I do see why they're upset. I know your parents made the will in good faith but because their mum died they gave lost out on a share of the major asset.

Some people are so greedy. The DGM left her money to who she wanted to. They will waste their money and money from the estate, trying to grab more. Hopefully they will get good legal advice

My lovely DMIL was the executor of her DF's estate.

Her DH was estranged from one of their 5 children and the will divided the estate equally between DMIL and 3 of her siblings.

The sibling cut out of the will sent a solicitors letter challenging the will.

DMIL was open to dividing the estate 5 ways but the other 3 siblings didn't want to - not out of financial gain but rather to stand by their fathers wishes (I don't want to go into detail but the reason for the estrangement was very much down to the sibling and had been very acrimonious and had hurt their DF deeply - many attempts at reconciliation were made by him and rebuffed after which he changed his will). The siblings felt very uneasy about not respecting his wishes and the other sibling (who had remained estranged and refused to visit their dying father) choosing to only engage at a point of financial benefit.

In the end DMIL sent a solicitors letter in return saying they intended to honour the will given it was made when DF was of sound mind and there was no reason to challenge it (all expresses in legal terms).

Essentially it was saying sue us or shut up.

They did the latter as MIL's solicitors had predicted - simply as there were no grounds to challenge.

Not liking the will or thinking it's not fair isn't enough.

So based on that my suggestion would be to see a solicitor, lay out all the back story and if from what you've written you'll get confirmation that a challenge isn't likely to have any legs as it were.

Send a solicitors letter to that effect.

If they then get their own legal advice they will also be told that any legal action isn't worth it - especially given the sums you're talking about.

Alternatively you could try and appease them.

The estate vale is 245+60. So nephews 20k each your DH and sister 122k.

If you take the full value of the estate 305k and divide by 3 then your DH would get 101k as would his sister and the nephews 33k each.

The amounts here being pretty nominal.

However what I suspect they want is the 20k each plus a third of the house value so 47k.

As such I think your choices are to offer a 33k share or simply tell them to bog off via a solicitor.

I'd personally do the latter.

I can see their point although as other posters have already pointed out the difference is minimal. Personally I would go along with what they want as it's a fairer split. Your dh's mother may have thought that it would be easier to manage if she left the house to the two remaining children.

Your DH should take legal advice if he is considering not distributing the assets in accordance with the will as it is the executors primary responsibility to carry out the terms of the will as they are recorded. Executors can have discretion, but only in certain circumstances.

For posters saying the will isn't fair I think you need to think a bit more deeply about it.

Firstly, it's not clear from the OP what they are requesting. A third of the entire estate (which would net them 33k) or a third of the house sale plus their 20k (ie 47k).

Remember non of the other grandchild stand to inherit anything.

The reality is the GM HAS already made provision for their mother loss to the tune of 60k.

The house may be worth 245k but the DH/DSis won't inherit all that. They'll have to pay upfront for estate agents fees, solicitors fees, removal costs and any repairs to the house to make it saleable. It might only sell for 200k. Who knows.

It's far from clear what they will eventually inherit.

Also the relationship is different between the GM and her son/daughter and grandchildren.

I don't know but I would suspect the DH/DSis had a closer relationship and may have been very active in her care in later life - again the amounts involved may reflect this.

Again, the DH/DSis may need the money more - coming to retirement age perhaps with limited income generation. Equally the reverse could be true with the nephews in more need - I don't know.

This is why wills are so tricky. What's "fair" isn't always what people perceive to be equitable.

What is clear here is that the GM has made what she felt to be an appropriate allocation of her assets. The loss of the nephews mother has not gone un-noted and specific provision has been made. Also note that 20k is without strings - the nephews won't have to fork out funds to sell the house or put in the effort to do so.

I personally see no reason to challenge her reasoning.

I would ignore them and distribute the estate as swiftly as possible in line with the will. It's actually really difficult to overturn a will correctly made and witnessed unless you have a dependent relationship on the deceased. Three adult grumpy males will get nowhere. I think the estate is being fairly shared.

Rules when someone contests a will:

1. You don't win
2. You don't win.
3. You don't win.

Tell the DNs to challenge away, there's no case to answer.

I can understand what they are saying, if the Will was made before their mum died but it wasn't, it was made after she died and the 3 nephews have been left some money, clearly this is what she wanted and that should be respected. Like others have said, they have 20k more than they had before, selling the house won't mean dh and sil get half of the entire proceeds after all the various fees and taxes they will end up paying. If she hadn't of left the nephews anything I would have given them a share but she has so they should be grateful, stop being so unkind and allow your dh and sil to come to terms with losing their mum.

FWIW. One of my siblings has died and my DM intends her estate to be divided into equal portions and leave what would have been left to him to his DC instead. She won't be leaving her other GC anything as she'll leave the rest to her living DC.

I'd be shocked if she didn't leave his share to his DC to be honest. It would be like his relevance ended with his death.

And I know that nobody has an entitlement to anything and some people don't believe in dividing things into equal portions.

They cannot contest the will just because they don't like the way your partner's mother has split her estate. They don't have a claim under the Inheritance Act unless they were financially dependent on your partner's mother at the time of her death, but they could attempt to show that the will is invalid, in which case intestacy rules would apply and the estate would be split three ways with them getting one third of the total estate to split between them. There is no way they would get one third of the value of the house as well as the £60k they've already got between them.

Assuming your partner's mother was of sound mind when she made her will, no-one unduly influenced her and the will was executed properly they don't have a claim. If is, of course, open to the beneficiaries to agree to distribute the estate differently if they wish but the nephews cannot force it.

Another factor is that the grandmother may have known/believed that the three brothers are in line to inherit significant sums from their other parent or their family.

I would follow prh47bridge’s advice as I understand they are a legal professional!

Having been an executor of a relative’s will, I understand that your DH and SIL’s duty is to carry out their Mother’s wishes.

Your DH and sister may wish to keep the house and rent it out for example rather than sell it.

While I can see there are no grounds to contest the Will I can see how the DNs may be feeling. They lost their DM at presumably a fairly early age and now it may feel like her existence has been written out of the family story.

I do see why they're upset. I know your parents made the will in good faith but because their mum died they gave lost out on a share of the major asset

They haven't lost out on anything. For all they know their mother could have inherited her share and squandered it all on a five-star round the world trip?? There is no guarantee that the other grandchildren in the family will receive any of their grandmother's estate so why should they?

Legally they haven’t a leg to stand on. Morally they might have had a point if the relative values of the savings and the house had changed massively since the Will was made, meaning that their GP’s original intentions would not be realised by a strict interpretation of the Will, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

Her existence has not been written out of history Gnome.

None of the other grandchildren have been given any money.

60k - a considérable proportion of the estate - has been specifically earmarked to take account of the passing of their mother.

Money, as per my pp that comes with no strings and is a defined amount.

There is no guarantee what the house will sell for, what the sale fees will be, what if any works need doing to make it saleable and when it will even sell - if could take over a year by the time the DH/DSis see any money from the sale of the house.

We also know nothing of the relationships here also. We're the nephews close to their grandparents? We're there other factors at play here such as the siblings providing care for elderly parents etc.

It's not possible to say this is a fundamentally unfair split.

That said - it doesn't matter what people think is fair or not. This is what the grandparents wanted to happen and clearly thought went into it as the will was made after the death of the sibling.

It's not like the will is "out of date" through changing circumstances.

There don't appear to be any grounds to challenge this will legally, nor do I see (on the face of it) morally either.

Nobody has a right to inherit unless they were dependent on the deceased at the time of his/her death (Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependents) Act).
Beneficiaries of a Will can voluntarily change the bequests. Whilst an Executor has a duty to carry out the deceased's wishes if they are also a beneficiary they can agree to a variation (except where beneficiaries are children, in which case the court must approve any variation).
GM was of sound mind. There is clearly no valid claim. However for the sake of family harmony, and given that it appears that it will make little difference financially, they could agree to an equal 3-way split. Equally they could abide by GM's wishes because the DNs have no legal case to demand it.

If I were one of the nephews I'd have been surprised and hurt by the will. But I wouldn't be trying to contest it! My mum is dead but my granny still alive but I've been told the contents of her will, don't know why!. My mum's sister will inherit 50% and me and my two sisters share the remaining 50% between us. I think it's fair and right personally.

I just can't imagine writing a Will like that.