Illegitimate adult child claim on inheritance

[RelativePitch]

My dad had an affair in his first marriage about 60 years ago. A child was born and the mother was paid off by my grandfather (around £250k in today's money). My father had nothing to do with this child and never met him.
My father died last year with a will whereby everything goes to my mother, but his properties go into trust for his 5 children.
My mother's solicitor rang to say that an anonymous woman rang up to say that she was going to make a claim on the estate on behalf of her son. No detail other than that. The Solicitor wouldn't commit to how worried we should be.
I understand that minors should be able to claim against an estate, but a 60 year old man?
Of course it could be another child we don't know about, but as my dad had a vasectomy in 1984, the youngest a child could be is 40.
My dad makes Boris Johnson look like the paragon of virtue!
How worried should we be?

This

The mother would have had a lot of explaining to do now if she told her child their father was dead. Possible though. Odd how the first thought was about an inheritance, rather than wanting to get to know other family members such as siblings.

Not really. That was a payment from his father in lieu of his father being in his life, and bearing any responsibility (including ongoing financial) at all.
Not the same at all as the other children.

So you had the benefit of your father, of being legitimised as you say, and don’t have the trauma of having had your mother literally paid off to get rid of you and you’re worrying about whether this man gets some of “your” inheritance? Wow.

Reread. It was the equivalent of £250,000, in today's money.

I'm surprised The solicitor would avoid discussing this (unless they had a conflict of interest & was about to quit) as its there job to sort these sort of things out

BUT if your dad had a will there's fuck all any of kids could do (however sad for the other kids)

This is complete curiosity and none of mine - but you say ‘she’ worked for your father’s first family…. There are a number of ways this can be taken (is ‘she’ the mother or the grandmother, and is first family as in your dad was previously married or his family where he was the child? If taken worst case on both, she would have been (much?) younger than your father and I can see why your grandfather may have paid her off without further evidence (particularly if he already had a low opinion of his sons). I think a DNA test would be the first thing to do, although the mother must be fairly sure if she is prepared to appeal the will.

Well they could do a deed of variation. I think that'd be the decent thing to do personally.

Why would that be his first thought? This is ultimate victim blaming? He suffered a terrible trauma that will have lived with him in one way or another always. He was rejected at conception. And if he doesn’t have large independent means why shouldn’t he feel entitled to something when his siblings are? And why should he want to get to know them?

Nobody seems to be thinking of the young woman here much, either.

Exactly. Age 16, unmarried and pregnant in the 60s to a man who is already married from a powerful family. The equivalent of 250k is the bloody least they should've done for her.

@Devonshiregal nope my dad left my mum in the early 80s when I was tiny. I didn't have the benefit of my father around. He married for the third time and got divorced again. He became close to my mum again and remarried her much later on when I was in my early 30s. It hasn't been an easy ride for any of his children.

I missed this aspect. So she was sixteen once she became pregnant, and had been working for your father's first family? So she was a maid, or a cleaner? What did fifteen year olds do in those days? He was her boss, and got her pregnant?

This is all horrible.

That works both ways.

It annoys the hell out of me that my ex got nothing because his half-sister chose not to do probate properly when their father died intestate.
He was estranged through no fault of his own (illegitimate) and only hasn't gone after her because he didn't want to be seen as a gold digger.
Given two of our children are ND any inheritance would have been bloody useful.
But it was handier for the woman who took it all to pretend she didn't know he existed as per the pp's advice above: Deny all knowledge. Your dad probably won’t even be on the birth certificate.
(in our case, birth certificate did name him and there was no doubt. Ex didn't want to fight though as it would be in poor taste/if his dad had wanted him to have something he'd have left a will etc. Morally laudable perhaps on his part but not justice, given he had a feckless father/downbeat dad from aged ten. Hitherto, there had been contact but then he disappeared from his life).

Didn't OP say it would be worth 250k in NOW, not that it was 250k 60 years ago?

Optics don’t look good?

Presumably your adult father impregnated a child? Your father had no shame.
What about those optics?
He deserves a share

The child's mother was my dad's first wife's Mother's Help.

And she was fifteen at the time, wasn't she?

"The child". You mean "My half brother".

@Geebray she was 16, she had him just before her 17th birthday. Legal, but horrendous.

My dad's Will specifically mentions one person (by name) who has no right to claim anything.

You're all clearly going to come into a decent sum. When you say "How worried should we be?" I think the answer is "To look like utter * to cut our brother out".

But the solicitor would need to know about it & be actively talking to both sides though ?

"There are a number of ways this can be taken (is ‘she’ the mother or the grandmother, and is first family as in your dad was previously married or his family where he was the child?"

OP made both these things clear.
The 'she' who worked for her DF's first family is the mother of the illegitimate child.
It's also clear that the first family is the DF's first wife.

OP, who told you she was paid that sum of money? When were you told that?