Oh fuck what is going to happen?

[notahappybunny7]

My mum has passed away. She has left everything in her will to me(house paid(220k and about 50k in savings)
no other siblings off my mother but my dad has 4 more(no relationship with them)
they're married have been for 40+ years but he’s a twat who’s never worked properly, my mum has grafted her arse off to pay mortgage and ct, he has paid utilities and food, well the basics my mum alway bought her lunches and any luxuries. No joint accounts ever.
I’m not money grabbing it my mum wanted this for me and my daughter, to better our lives, he is saying he’s not moving and will contest the will. What will happen?

I have read the post over and over again I cannot understand how a post can be allowed when it is absolutely full of foul language f word and c word in the posting and replies YET when someone comes out and challenges the OP then the reply gets deleted . The OP has been vicious in her replies attacking people . It is a shame that money can destroy families and drive a wedge between family members t a time when a daughter has lost a mother but a husband ha lost a wife after 40 years of marriage how very very sad.

wikidee
Can only see tw*t no c or f word? in the original post. Not read all the replies so cannot comment on those

Speaking personally, I do not believe that swearing is offensive and if you do then I would suggest that MN is not the place for you!

I think I'd be fairly vicious if I'd watched a parent struggle in an abusive marriage and never manage to get free of that person, and then die still in that abusive marriage, with the abuser then getting effectively a free ride. I'd be spitting fucking feathers and wanting the cunt to burn... probably.

We can only go on what posters tell us, and then we can choose to believe them, or not - neither option has any guarantee of being correct of course, but I can't be arsed deciding that every poster is a big fat liar and trying to call them out on it, its negative and boring.

Yes when you put it like this it has a different ring to it!

OP, the starting point here is your late mum's Will. She left everything to you and therefore it is the responsibility of the executor to administer the Will on that basis i.e. to apply for a grant of probate and then transfer the property into your name. Who is the executor named in the Will? I'm assuming it's you.

It is entirely up to your father whether he seeks to make a claim against the estate under the Inheritance (Provision for family and dependants) Act 1975. Until he does that, until you get a letter from his solicitor, I would proceed as above.

Your mum clearly intended to cut him from her Will. Ask the solicitor who drafted the Will for a copy of their file. They should have asked your mum why she wasn't making provision for her husband and warned her there might be a claim. This will be useful evidence in the event of a claim by him.

If he does make a claim, I think he'd have a good chance of succeeding. He has been financially dependent upon your mum for a number of years and, despite her wishes in the Will, a court is likely to take the view that he needs to be provided for by the estate. If you do get a letter from his solicitor, you need to get your own legal advice. It might be possible to negotiate a deal where you give him a sum of money to pay him off rather than waste the estate in legal costs.

I cannot identify all the facts from this thread, it's incredibly long and a lot of it is either misinformation or people slagging each other off. However, I would want to ascertain the following:

1. Was the title of the house solely in the mother's name or also that of the father? If it was in the name of both, was it as a joint tenancy or tenants in common?

If both names are on the title and it is a joint tenancy, the house cannot be left in the will. It passes to the father through survivorship. So my first question would be that. I'm satisfied survivorship does not apply to the bank account as apparently these were never joint.

2. The next question about ownership of the home, even if it was solely in the name of the mother, is whether it could be argued that there is a constructive trust where the father is the beneficiary. You may come across these concepts more frequently where an unmarried couple cohabit and split up, but there is only one name on the title. If the other has contributed in some other way it can be argued that they have an interest in the property. I would need a lot more information on the circumstances of the parties (and probably more experience of trust law!) to say any more on this but you need to ask this question because first you need to establish whether it was all your mother's to bequeath in the first place.

3. If you confirm it was indeed all your mother's property, then next you will need to consider the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975. People cannot just abandon their spouse in death any more than they can in life. Reasonable financial provision for the father is likely to be something similar to what they would have received in a divorce, so 50% of the joint assets in these circumstances on the grounds neither party were still working so there wasn't likely to be any ongoing maintenance.

*wikidee

How do you know this man is an abuser*

Doesn't matter if he was or wasn’t. It won’t make an iota of difference if he challenges the will the courts aren’t interested. They will just see a woman who was married to a man for 40 years. If he was so bad that she didn’t want him to get hold of her house and money then she would have divorced him. Before she bought her house.

This is true. The Chancery Court won't be in the slightest bit interest in alleged abuse full stop. The Family Court is too backed up to deal with abuse where the victim is deceased from natural causes.

In terms of the will, the allegation of abuse is irrelevant.

A cautionary tale to sort out your affairs during your lifetime trying to do so in a cack handed way after you are gone not only doesn’t work but causes misery for the poor sod landed with trying to sort it all out.

This is definitely a potential case under the Inheritance Act and all it takes is a potential claim for them to make themselves such a nuisance that you have to negotiate and give something up. The only alternative is to go to Court at huge cost and risk the judgment falling on your side - and it is always a risk regardless of how good you think your case is. You could both end up spending £100k each to get to this point and the only winners are the lawyers but you can't reason with unreasonable people so that's how it happens. I'm not a lawyer but just someone who has been in a similar situation to yourself (only in our case the 2nd wife had been adequately provided for by most people's standards but she just wanted it all) and has therefore been more involved in contentious probate for the last 4 years than I ever wanted to be. We settled out of Court to be shot of her.

It's so important if you get divorced to make sure if there is no clean break that there is at least a clause that they cannot claim on the estate. This is especially important if you have children and don't want your assets passing to an ex to have discretion to who they subsequently pass the assets to on their own death (as they could for example die intestate and pass the estate to a new spouse rather than the children of the marriage).

When I divorced my ex-wife, one important concession I achieved was that she agreed to make no claims on the estate and would instead buy insurance for herself to secure child maintenance payments. This means that I can be sure our children will be the beneficiaries of my will and there is no risk of a new partner taking their legacy.

But there's no divorce in this situation 😕

OP's father is a widower.

No, but the way the Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975 works, a contested will is going to feel like one. You can no more abandon a spouse in death as you can in life.

My own comment above built on that for the benefit of others considering a divorce though, as without a clean break ex-spouses can also pursue your estate (less than ideal if for example you share a home with a new partner or you want your children rather than your ex's new partner to benefit from your estate) in the same way as the Op's father is doing. Agreement can be reached between divorcing spouses to have no claim on the other's estate.

Other ways you can protect your loved ones if your ex-spouse will not agree to this include ensuring everything that your new spouse will need is in their name only (although this is risky if you're not married for obvious reasons) and to leave money for the children through life assurance products that are not part of the estate.

The case law basically says that a spouse shouldn’t be worse off on death than on divorce.

Basically, if you look at what he would have got on divorce, it gives a pretty clear indication what he will get if he challenges the will.

That can mean it’s possible to completely disinherit a spouse (in England and Wales). If I have £100,000 in assets and I’m divorcing a man with £1 million in assets, I would expect him to have to pay me not the other way around. I would therefore be fine not to leave him a penny in my will (all hypothetical, I’m not married).

In this case, the OP’s mother had all the family assets in her name and financially maintained a registered disabled husband. There is absolutely no doubt he will get a big chunk of the assets if he challenges the will. The courts don’t care about behaviour except in incredibly limited circumstances. This is very unlikely to be one of those circumstances.