Homelessness and probate

[wetpebbles]

Hello, I am dealing with my homeless brothers estate, he had some inheritance 2 years ago but unfortunately died before he could claim, he was homeless for 20 years and probate are asking for his address and won’t accept mine as a c/o address, help?

Do you need probate? If he didn't own any property and had no significant financial assets, probate is not normally required.

If he has an inheritance from an unadministered estate then he may have enough to need probate. Or the issue might be his address for the purpose of administering that estate.

Was he street homeless? in a hostel?

Would they accept an account of his history and the letters NFA?

He cannot be the first homeless person to inherit/or have an estate to administer. They must have some process to deal with it.

Yes he has over £5000 inheritance so I have applied for letters of administraton as I am next of kin,
he was not living in any kind of hostel he lived totally off grid.

Did he have benefits? If so address did the DWP use?

Though the 'last resort' there is the Job Centre so not much use now.

As above I'd write out a short account of his life history and ask them how to deal with it; put the ball in their court for them to deal with.

If he died before he received the inheritance it's not part of his estate and gets distributed among the other recipients I believe.

Or as his next of kin the inheritance comes straight to you from the original estate, no need to apply for probate again.

That would apply if he died before or perhaps very shortly after the person whose estate he inherits.

What seems to have happened here is that at the time of the brother's death the estate he inherited from had not been administered.

The money will go into his estate and then be distributed in accordance with his will or the Intestacy Rules.

He dies 2 years after receiving inheritance but was a missing person we were trying to find him

Original solicitor said I have to apply for probate and she is holding his inheritance

He did not receive benefits or have a bank account as he lived totally off grid

Thank you everyone, I think I'll talk to CAB and draft an explanation letter, it's a very unique situation I can't find anything about it online.

Needing probate for this is not cut and dried. For the sake of £5000 they're being a bit petty. Even the banks don't require probate for such a small amount.

I would suggest you instruct a solicitor to "appeal" to their more pragmatic nature.

As for the address thing, I really don't know I'm afraid. Normally you would put down whatever was on the death certificate. Was any (your) address shown on there?