How to find out how an estate is distributed

[TheCheesePlantIsATriffid]

My DH's mum died a couple of years ago. His sister and her DH who live at the family home still are 'dealing with' probate (his dad is unwell and not able to do it himself). Neither him or his other brother who doesn't live in the family home have had any response to basic questions about the will (even if there is one) or offers of help with anything.

They have searched the government database and no grant of probate is turning up. They are assuming that everything has gone to his dad as would be expected, but any queries are answered with basically MYOB, why are you asking, it's all in hand etc etc

It's a normal question to know if there's a will and if there's an issue with probate, right? I think DH and BIL don't want to press the issue in case it seems mercenary but they feel sad their DSis is withholding information for no real reason. It feels like the elephant in the room and they are worried about their dad.

Do all estates eventually go through probate? How do they find out about a will? The joint assets are significant so it hasn't all been spent on the funeral.

I am not a lawyer, but no, not all estates go through probate. When my Dad died the house automatically passed into my mother's sole name as they owned it jointly. My parents didn't have a huge amount in savings but what they did have was also mostly in joint names so also automatically went into Mum's sole name. There was an ISA that was in just Dad's name and that was small enough for the bank to hand it over to Mum just on sight of the death certificate and the will (which left everything to Mum). If there had been no will, I assume we would have had to certify that and it would still have gone to Mum under the intestacy law.

It will be a different story when my Mum dies as then my brother and I will have to go through the Scottish equivalent of probate, but from the sound of it your Mum's estate was more like my Dad's.

Assuming that your father was domiciled in Scotland, your post raises a number of issues that may mislead others -
In Scotland a house does not pass automatically to a surviving joint owner. There needs to be a survivorship clause in the title for this to happen.
In Scotland, while control of a joint account will pass to the survivor, the contents do not automatically pass to the surviving account holder merely because it is a joint account.

OK. In that case, there must have been a survivorship clause, as the solicitors assured us my Mum is now the sole owner of the house. Also Bank of Scotland certainly gave the impression it was automatic. They did see the will, I think, so perhaps we assumed the transfer was happening because it was a joint account, but in fact it wasn't.