ExDH has died intestate, new partner trying to claim his pensions for her children as well as ours?

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Hi all

My ExH died recetly and left no will, we have two children together, therefore as he died intestate they are his beneficiaries. He had 6 work pensions non of which he named beneficiaries on. I have instructed a solicitor as I recently found out the partner he had been living with for the last 3.5 years of his life is trying to claim his pensions for her children (four of them) as well as mine?

Can she claim any part of these for her (not his) children?

Poor son 2 wasn't getting anything of his Dad anyway.

disford what do you mean?

Disford means justaskinga post. Where ds1 was inheriting and died.

Aaaaahhh I see 😀

@Maybe83 maybe he did want his dcs to inherit, but I find it difficult to believe that someone would buy a property with someone knowing that their death would result in them becoming homeless. Especially when the property was partially funded by the other woman's parents.

The deposit should absolutely be returned to the parents. The ops dcs would be benefiting from another families inheritance if not.

With regards to the pension, maybe the amount of time the OP and the deceased were together should be considered theirs. But if the father had lived to the youngest being 18, would they have been entitled if he had left a will, or remarried? If not then they were not financially dependent at the time of his death. And consideration should be paid to how long they would have been financially dependent on him.

If he had lived then the dcs would have had to wait until his natural death to inherit, the fact he died young doesn't necessarily mean they should inherit half a property now. The other family would have presumably lived in it until his death (at old age) unless they had separated which would have meant the courts would have divided fairly. And the courts wouldn't have taken into consideration the OPs dc necessarily.

It's a shit situation but not as black and white, at least morally as what the OP is saying.

@Frouby when you buy a property you choose the ownership type. He opted for tenants in common. It is clearly explained what that means for ownership on the death of one of the owners so clearly if you find it difficult or not his intention was not for his partner to inherit the property in full should he die.

Well he didnt live until old age so that isnt relevant. The op has to deal with the here and now and what is in her DC best interests.

Op how do you know he had no will?

We have asked them to declare he hasn't, which they have. His sister has also told us there was no will. Who knows however...

Morally in your shoes I'd feel that my DCs had a claim on the pensions and that money needs to go in trust until they're adults. I'd leave the house to well alone though.

I would find it hard to be generous and sympathetic to someone who had planned to use my children's personal details for her own gain - at the expense of my kids - and without even mentioning it to me.

There are a lot of well meaning answers here, but without knowing what sort of pensions he had, many of the answers will be wide of the mark. Don't waste money on a solicitor; you can get free, impartial and expert assistance from the Pensions Advisory Service: www.pensionsadvisoryservice.org.uk/

They will do a much better job of patiently explaining things to you and will happily read any correspondence, scheme booklets etc.

Do you know which solicitors your ex used? Maybe an email to check? You are representing your dc surely?

A solicitor for what yellow? his house purchase?

Solicitor who might have written a will for him, might be worth asking around.

Any dealings he has had really, neighbour issues? Parking fines he saw one about? One his dp's may use and suggested? Op you need to turn detective ASAP imo! Email all within a ten mile radius to be sure? Remember she is counting on you doing naff all. So you need to do everything!

If he owns part of the house as a tenant in common then his share which forms part of his estate goes to his children who are his next of kin as he died intestate and was not married. This will have to go through the probate office as Letters of Administration. You could be appointed the Administrator as opposed to an executor who is the the person to administer an estate when a will is made. I would think Letters of Administration would be needed before any funds could be released. But this is what solicitors are for.
The monies from the pension funds fall outside his estate and should go to his children but he may have completed an expression of wish form which differs from this. Again hopefully your solicitor will get this sorted for you.

I would try and establish which solicitor was used for the house conveyancing. It is clear some advice was given on purchasing the house with regard to being tenants in common, it would be remiss of the solicitor not to advise on this, and also to advise on making a will.
If you can find out which solicitors were used (via the original vendors estate agent perhaps? ) , it might be worth asking if he had written a will too....

I’d make sure my children got exactly what they were entitled to.
In terms of pension and house.

@Maybe83 @SonEtLumiere the property was purchased with funds from the other womans family. The father has only lived in it 10 months, it's unlikely to have increased in value in 10 months. The life insurance taken out to protect the loan is unlikely to pay out, as it was a suicide. So there will be little to no equity for the ops dcs to inherit, other than a share of the 52k, which wasn't provided by their father.

The pensions should absolutely be considered to be passed to his own dcs, plus any savings or investments. But his new partner, at the time of his death was financially intertwined with him as well.

It's not straightforward either morally or legally. The father may well have intended for his dcs to inherit his share of the property on his death but as it stands the only equity is likely to be the 52k which was never his in the first place.

There are some strange ideas being posted. Solicitors are bound by rules of client confidentiality - and the idea that they will breach these just to admit they didn't give proper advice...come into the real world!

It may well be that the parents funding a hefty share of the purchase wanted a tenants in common arrangement. Ever thought of that?

Quite possible that the pension schemes are a mixture of trust based (in which case the individual rules of a particular scheme will come into play and trustees will make the decision if there are any discretions involved) and contract based (the pension provider decides). If as the poster has said there are no expression of wish/nomination forms, it is quite possible they would award some funds to the bereaved partner - but without knowing a lot more about the situation it's impossible to guess with any accuracy. Could be that the partner is a bankrupt/on some sort of debt management programme and thinks that having funds diverted to her children would be a better bet than getting them herself.

I'm unsure why you say the estate is only the pensions? What about the house?

@ourkidmolly OP has mentioned a house which ex bought with new partner 10 months before his death.

Something I actually do know about! If the pension is held in master trust then the trustees determine who the beneficiaries will be. Potential beneficiaries need to show financial dependence - joint mortgage or rental agreement, regular maintenance payments etc. The pension pot in this case would possibly be split 3 ways between the new DP and 2 DC.

@whiteroseredrose Potential beneficiaries don't necessarily need to show financial dependence, particularly where they are named on expression of wish/nomination forms.