Stepmother concealing Father’s will

[Acer77]

My Father died last year and I am sure my Stepmother is concealing or has destroyed the will. She claims there isn’t one but my father was very organised and I’m sure would have written one after my parents divorce if not a more recent version.

I have done a will search through certainty but nothing came up. Are there other ways to search for a will? Or other options that might force my Stepmother to reveal the will? I believe it was in his briefcase and she didn’t like the contents so she has destroyed it...

Also how can we find out what is in my Father’s estate? The house was jointly owned with my SM so unless he specified in a will she gets the whole thing. What happens with Life Insurance and his pension and how can we find out about these things if we don’t have access to the paperwork?

I should also mention we are not in direct contact with SM now because she has been harassing us (sending abusive letters and emails) so the police have advised us not to make any direct contact. She has suffered from mental health issues for the whole of their marriage, the seriousness of which have only become clear to us since his death. I now believe she suffers from some kind of personality disorder. To say she is difficult to deal with is a huge understatement! Therefore I think we have to deal with this through a solicitor and don’t want to rack up huge fees if there is nothing in the estate we have rights to...

Any advice gratefully received!

I have no advice to offer but am curious. My step father died without a will. My mother has a will. I'm the executor. I'm anxious about what will transpire upon her death. How can anyone be certain a person died without a will? Is it really just down to the surviving spouse to say? What happens with a death when no one is aware of a will?

Whether their was a will or not she would of needed to go through probate after the death - did this happen .. have a look at this.

I wonder if you can ask if it happened, you might not be able to find out the details.

www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheritance

www.gov.uk/search-will-probate

There's two links there ^

Could you contact local solicitors to see if any of them made a will for your father?

I think there should be a national registry for depositing wills once you have made one, as in some other countries, to stop them getting "lost" when someone dies.

Life insurance is often written in trust which means it doesn't form part of his estate. It is up to the trustees to determine where the money goes but they normally follow the wishes of the deceased. There is a decent chance this has gone to your stepmother.

There are lots of possibilities with a workplace or personal pension but it is unlikely to form part of his estate. The most likely possibilities are that the pension simply stopped when he died or your stepmother is receiving a pension, probably at a reduced rate, and/or she has received a lump sum.

The house was jointly owned with my SM so unless he specified in a will she gets the whole thing

If they were joint tenants it doesn't matter what it said in his will. She would get the whole thing. If they were tenants in common his share would form part of his estate and would be dealt with in accordance with his will. If there was no will the intestacy rules would determine what happened to his share of the house.

Whether their was a will or not she would of needed to go through probate after the death

Not necessarily. Probate is needed to give the executor authority to close bank accounts, sell shares and sell or transfer property. If the house was owned as joint tenants, that plus any money in joint accounts would have passed to the OP's stepmother, so probate would not be needed to deal with those assets. So probate would only be necessary if there were other assets that could not be dealt with unless probate was obtained.