Aunt has died and her friend reluctant to leave her house

[JellyBook]

Our aunt died late November and she had a friend staying when she died. The friend lives overseas and doesn’t want to go (yet, she says).

Just getting a bit nervy about whether she will decide to stay even longer, and what problems that might cause. She has been left a lump sum in the will. The house and belongings are left to the estate to be sold and shared amongst various family members. Aunty leaves no spouse or children.

Do we have anything to worry about or should we just proceed with probate, sale of house and just tell her you need to make arrangements to leave?

Red flags everywhere now!

When did she get written into the will for a big chunk of money? If your aunt changed her will fairly recently I’d be quite concerned.

Worth checking. Usually the same person who is the executor would be the person who would be asked to be dealing with POA - if they are trustworthy enough to be the executor, they would be trustworthy as an attorney and it makes the whole thing easier - eg attorney could have been in the process of selling the house at the point of death.

Also, what happens with insurance if she burns the house down* whilst living there? Will they pay out?

*hyperbole, but standing in for any insurable loss.

TinklyLittleLaugh makes a really good point to consider. When did this cheeky fucker friend get added to the will?

I would be talking to the solicitor to find out when the Will was updated to find out when the friend was added to it as recipient of a large lump sum and how the timings coincide with the dementia diagnosis. If she is capable of coming over days before your aunt died and trying to claim POA then it wouldn’t be surprising to discover that on a previous visit she ‘helped’ your aunt to update her will to include a nice chunk for herself.

It could also explain why she knew who your aunt’s solicitor’s were - why would friends normally know that sort of info?

Sounds like the solicitor is on your side which is good - when fil died last year, he had dementia and only weeks beforehand his partner had been trying to persuade dh to become an executor on his will - no way was he fit to update it. In the end he didn’t go through with it because he didn’t think it right to change the will when he was ill. Wish he had though - family thought sil was an executor but seems the partner managed to get the Will changed to someone else because the solicitor refused to talk to the family and only dealt with the partner and we never saw any Will. We don’t think there would have been much money but dh and his siblings would have liked to have had a Momento from their dad and there were some old family photos and history stuff that would have been great to have had; they’re good at copying and sharing that sort of stuff, would have been great for all the gc to have known about it but I suspect she threw everything in the bin.
We had distinctly unhelpful dealings with fil’s solicitors (or rather - his partners. She was in legal profession so suspect dodgy dealings) but a helpful solicitor might well have previous wills or at least the dates to check out the changes. Even if there’s no previous Will sounds like the rest of the family would distribute it fairly if it was necessary to fall back on the laws of intestacy.

Has anyone spoken to the bank to check if your aunt had a deposit box there with anything in? And to check nothing is going out of the account now - again, I bet she will say ain’t gave her the bank card and number to get cash out for the aunt and to take some for herself - and she will have taken it all. Likewise her pension needs to be stopped as you don’t want to be paying it back if the friend has been spending it already!

Good luck at getting her out...

Can't you offer her to rent the house for now?

Why on earth would they do that? Worst advice ever. For God’s sake don’t create a tenancy.

Put all household bills in her name.

Also worst advice ever. The perils of asking for advice on Mumsnet!

I would be talking to the solicitor to find out when the Will was updated to find out when the friend was added to it as recipient of a large lump sum and how the timings coincide with the dementia diagnosis. If she is capable of coming over days before your aunt died and trying to claim POA then it wouldn’t be surprising to discover that on a previous visit she ‘helped’ your aunt to update her will to include a nice chunk for herself

^^ Wibdib makes an excellent point. Def check that out OP.

She updated her will after my uncle died, I remember her jokingly apologising for giving us the job as executors in a 'good luck with that' manner, - I don't think she was forseeing any problem with the friend though, she was refering to all the niknaks she'd accumulated over the years.

There are a lot of things, as you would expect from that age, but she was everso tidy and organised, bless her.

As I said, other family are going in today, they will make it clear everthing needs to be inventoried etc, house emptied and they'll proceed in a very matter of fact way - they are prewarned!

I'm going to have a good talk with the solicitor today and see if he'll be more forthcoming when he knows my concerns. As far as I can gather the friend was concerned about paying bills for the house etc and that's why the POA was discussed. In the event, the solicitor (who has had dealings with my aunt and uncle over the years so knows what they were like when they were in good health) took the opinion that he couldn't proceed with discussions about POA until he had a doctor's opinion, so they didn't even get to the stage of form filling. Thank goodness for that.

I'm arranging a (trusted) house clearance firm to go in and assess/quote - hence the need for the others to go and do an inventory today. Then we can say you need to be out by xxx as the house will be cleared.

don't accept a penny of payment from her that could be construed as rent or she will be much more difficult to evict.

yes it is worth investigating the history of the will writing to check if anything inappropriate happened.

locate aunt's valuables before she leaves or they could end up being in her luggage.

she needs to be gone quickly.

I am wondering if the friend is homeless and was intending to live rent free at your aunt's.
Maybe you could take her out for a meal, and get someone to search her room while she is with you, since you say items are missing.

Oh dear, the update about the POA is worrying. Surely that can't be taken as innocent if the aunt clearly had relatives around. Hope you get this sorted OP, how awful if your kindness in allowing her to stay turns out to have been misguided.

This friend attempted to get a POA just weeks before the death of a lady with dementia. Has seen no issue with living rent free & running up utility bills in her friend’s house for 2 months AFTER her death - and there are valuable pieces of jewellery missing.

She needs to go today & if no explanation can be given for the whereabouts of your aunt’s jewellery you may have to tell her you need to contact the Police as someone must have helped themselves without any right to do so. That may magically make things reappear, or not. But worth a try.

The one thing I will say with regards to the friend being added to the will is that the Solicitor does seem pretty good. I would doubt that he would allow that kind of amendment after the dementia diagnosis.

Please take the advice of everyone on here.

Then we can say you need to be out by xxx as the house will be cleared
FGS.
She needs to be out NOW.
But not before you've checked her pockets and bags for jewellery and god knows what else.

I'm trying to be firm but not too heavy handed, just feel like she will put up more of a fight if we push too hard - then end up costing the estate more money to fight back.

I have a plan about 'emptying her pockets'..

We have already said that she can have a few items, specific ornaments and plates which she said she bought for my Aunt when they were visiting gardens and the like - nothing of huge value or heirlooms, but momentos. I plan to draw up a list for her to take with her and I will say this is in case anyone challenges her about what she's taken from the house, but of course this means that she will have to make sure she doesn't have anything that isn't on that list, and therefore giving her the opportunity to cough it up.

I know some of you will probably think I'm being to soft, but I'm trying not to rattle her too much and make her dig her heels in.

I think you were the wrong person to task with the role of executor, op. You need to take some proper legal advice with all possible speed, because you don’t seem to have listened to anyone on this thread.
You’ve left yourself wide open.

Oh, fgs

I'm afraid I agree with 74NewStreet, you need support and advice. You don't need to 'push' at all; just calmly and clearly tell her what you're doing, in line with the legal and practical requirements of being executors.

Keep reminding yourself this has been going on since November; it's not like it happened a few days ago and she's justifiably still in shock.

Christ -she has no right to be in that house legally or otherwise. Tell her to get out.

OP

Unless tou are the sole beneficiary of the estate you have no authority to gift her items from the house. If you do so you are stealing from the other beneficiaries. My family were involved in a long legal dispute as a result of one executor deciding to hand items out to friends of the desceased.

You can only gift from YOUR share.

You really do need legal advice.

This woman is actually squatting in the house.
So long as she is outside the door and can't get inside the police will do nothing.

I honestly am listening, and I am grateful for the advice, it has definitely confirmed that I need to act now, which I am - family are there right now.

The house is just under 3 hours drive away.

I do have authority to gift items to her actually, as the contents are left to the executors to distribute, keep or sell at their discretion. The will is clear on that. The thought being that if we throw her a bone she won't be greedy. We now know what we're dealing with.

I'm reading all of it, there is good and bad advice here, e.g. offering it to her to rent, or asking her to pay bills. I'm not doing any of that, and no-one has invited her to stay other than my late Aunt.

So stop the nonsense of trying to avoid her digging her heels in and escort her off the premises today.

It's not as easy as just marching her off the premises. We had this with my great aunts boyfriend and the solicitor said we had to be careful and give a date to leave by. Then if they didn't we would have to go down a bailiffs route. It's awful!!

Bailiffs to remove an unwanted guest? She has no right to be there, the person who invited her in is dead.

Different situation, but you can actually change the locks when she is out - so long as you also return her personal belongings.

We had to do this with a “friend” of my mum’s at the end of her life, she was ill & he was refusing to leave her home.

He went to the Police for help. The Police called my mum to ask for her side of the story. I spoke to them as mum was too unwell. They supported us fully & told him to not come near the house again.