Possible inheritance fraud?

[StupidlyStuck]

My grandad died recently, and my mum was his only child. They had a rocky relationship and due to her being irresponsible with money (overspending and subsequently losing a house and another inheritance, including money left to me and my brother), my grandad changed his will about 15 years ago, and divided his estate into equal parts between her and his grandchildren. He made me and my brother the executors and didn’t inform our mum of this. All of us have always suspected she has an undiagnosed mental illness and to him, this seemed like the best way to ensure the money would be passed on fairly, and would make up for our inheritance we’d lost due to her actions.
Fast forward to this year, he died in January. He was quite unwell before he died and unable to communicate with us and our mum blocked us from seeing him. When he died, she also refused to tell us funeral details so we couldn’t attend, and told us we were no longer executors as his will had been changed last summer, with her as the sole executor and beneficiary. She refused to let us see the will, saying it would become public once probate was granted. We had an OK relationship with her before this but literally on the day he died, she turned really nasty towards us and as soon as she told us he’d died, basically told us to back off as she’s inherited everything.
Since then, she has moved into his house and has bought lots of new things, cars etc, using his money (she got power of attorney before he died). She is close to bankruptcy (again) so definitely hasn’t got the funds to buy new cars etc herself.
However, probate hasn’t been granted (even though lots of later deaths have been granted already) and the land registry still shows my grandad (and late nanny) as the owners of the house. We suspect she’s deliberately not applied for probate and has just moved in and continued spending money as she has access to his account.
Can she do this if probate hasn’t been granted? I wonder if she’s either dodging inheritance tax, or deliberately hiding the contents of the will? Any advice would be gratefully received, on what kind of questions we should be asking. For us, it’s partly about the will but mainly it’s doing the right thing and not fraudulently draining a dead man’s bank account whilst living in his house and withholding the fact he’s dead?!

Her power of attorney ended on his death. If she persuaded him to make his bank account into a joint account, the money in it is now hers and she can spend it freely. However, if she is using her PoA to access the account and spend the money on herself, that is fraud. If you know which bank is involved, you should contact them and make sure they know he is dead.

I can only assume the advice you need is to contact a solicitor immediately.

What a terrible situation to be in. Do you have personal legal expenses insurance? You might have it with your home insurance.

You need to get decent legal advice from a firm experienced in contentious probate. But if he did make a new will, depending on what is in it you can possibly subpoena her to produce it to probate, and possibly cite her to accept or refuse probate. It will all depend on what is in any will.

I don’t know which bank he was with unfortunately, and I also don’t have a copy of his death certificate so I’m not sure how far I could get with that.
I do believe her when she said she’s inherited everything, so is it fraudulent if she’s spending that money if the will said it’s hers?
I’m 95% sure he will have just left everything to her as he just hated confrontation and would have done it just to make everything simple. It’s just so strange that if everything is hers then probate-wise, this should therefore be the easiest case ever with one sole heir, so why hasn’t she applied for it? What is she trying to hide?

Do you have a copy of the will that included you? I would be telling her that you’re applying for probate with that unless she produces the later will to prove it exists.

I don’t but I did contact his solicitor when he died, and they confirmed that a new will had been made to replace that one, and that I am not an executor on the new one. When she told us he’d died and that she was the executor, she refused to prove a new one existed and got really angry when I said I’d need to check with his solicitor if she couldn’t show me the new will herself.

She shouldn't user her PoA to take money from his bank account. However, if he really has left her everything it is her money so the authorities won't take any action. However, the way she appears to be hiding things would concern me. Why do this if she is really entitled to everything?

Note that there is no IHT to pay unless his estate exceeds £500k. If he was still married to your grandmother when she died and she left everything to him, there may be no IHT to pay unless his estate exceeds £1M. It is, of course, tax fraud if his estate is above the threshold and your mother is using her PoA in an attempt to reduce his estate to avoid IHT.

I have another question, sorry! After asking other family members, they think my nanny died when a mirror will was in place, the one I described before, dividing the estate between the grandchildren and my mum. So technically when she died, my grandad would have inherited her share as he was still alive. But no-one ever did anything like apply for probate or administration, they just told us they transferred everything into my grandad’s name instead. But clearly they forgot to do the house.
What does that then mean for my mum, if my nanny is still named as an owner of the house? The last will my nanny had was the one I’m executor on. Does my mum somehow need to claim that she’s next of kin and that overrides the will? I guess she’ll need to prove my grandad inherited the house and somehow transfer it to him even though he’s now dead?!
Sorry it’s complicated…

No, your mother cannot override your grandmother's will. If the house was left to your grandfather, it passes to his estate.

So how is that proven and followed through? Will she need my nanny’s will to prove it passed to my grandad, and has she got the ability to make that happen despite not being an executor on my nanny’s will?

Op you can get a copy of the death certificate from the general register office. Sorry for your loss x

Assuming the property was owned jointly, someone has to notify the Land Registry of your grandmother's death. This is done by completing form DJP and sending it with an official copy of the death certificate. That is all that needs to happen (assuming it hasn't been done already).

Changing deeds for land registry is taking a long time at the moment - around a year! Unless it's marked as urgent. My solicitors told me this. So worth bearing that in mind too.

A few things to comment on here that may help you re the property.
If a sole legal owner dies her/his property forms part of the estate. If there’s a recorded will then the executor(s) apply for probate and then deal with the estate.
If someone inherits the property they aren’t the registered legal owner until it’s transferred (an Assent form AS1) by the executor(s). So if it was inherited but never transferred the property is still part of the deceased’s estate.
If there are joint owners and one dies the legal ownership passes to the surviving owner. Form DJP plus death certificate updates the register. Probate isn’t needed to deal with the property.
Whilst we have delays on some types of application for a DJP or AS1 it’s on average around 4 months. The wait time is rarely an issue but if there’s an urgency such as an onward sale/remortgage then matters can be expedited
Mirror wills are often entered into by joint legal owners. And each can continue to live in the property after the first death but the property is then dealt with after the second death.
So start with how is the property registered. Solely or jointly. Then see if probate is needed and who the executor(s) are and what the will says.

Spending money prior to probate - even if you have inherited everything - is fraud. Stop farting around on mumsnet and pay for a solicitor. Tomorrow. They can put the appropriate stops on her activity

Police?

I might also dob her in to HMRC for Inheritanced Tax fraud

The property passes to your grandfather’s estate and then under the terms of his current Will. How this is achieved depends on whether the house was in your grandmother’s sole name or was it in joint. If it was in her sole name, assuming you were the only named executor as you say, then you would have the authority to transfer the property to your grandfather’s estate (although if this is actually the case I don’t understand why you weren’t involved with your grandmother’s estate at the time). If your grandfather was actually the executor, then his executors effectively become the executors of your grandmother’s estate, so they would be able to transfer the property to his estate.
If it was in joint names, your mother would just need to notify HMLR with a form DJP, as someone has previously said.

Is the value of the estate large enough that IHT would be due?

Did you get anywhere with this?

similar situation in that dad was living with grandma. Will leaves everything to grandchildren, with a small lump sum to dad.

strongly suspect large amounts were moved out of her account before death, and also after death, as dad was making daily trips to the bank while she was on end of life care, and was seen with her bank cards after death.

won’t show us the will. Says he’s executor, won’t produce estate accounts. We reported suspected fraud to the bank, who said the account was still open (after a year) and the death hadn’t been reported. They have since closed it saying they have the will but won’t investigate the fraud or tell us anything else.

apparently it’s a civil case unless we have proof to take to the police?