Wills and who oversees executor?

[Bollocksmorelike]

Hi. Posting to ask peeps who are way cleverer than I!
My MIL recently died. She had 5 kids but always made it clear she would leave everything to one daughter (Tammy) as Tammy had never left home and had no family of her own, whereas all the other siblings have their own homes/lives.
So now MIL has passed and we find out that Tammy is the only executor on the will, as well as the only beneficiary.
MIL said in the past that her funeral wishes were written in the will, as well as a list of gifted items she wished for individuals to have (not valuable, things like a childhood books etc).
Now Tammy has instructed the solicitor holding the will to not share any information about the will to anyone but her. So no
one else actually knows what was written in the Will. As she is the only executor, the solicitors will only take instruction from her.
Tammy has not instructed any solicitor to deal with the legal side of things going forward.
So my question is, who oversees executors? Who makes sure inheritance tax is paid? If MIL had decided to leave anyone else anything in her will, how would anyone know as Tammy won’t let anyone see it.
We know her funeral wishes, and wishes to gift certain items, are being ignored. But the whole thing makes me wonder how possible it would be, as an only executor, to just tell everyone that you are inheriting everything….who would know, if they can’t see the will? (that’s not the case with us, we all knew she would get everything)
In this case, the majority of the inheritance is property which Tammy lives in so theoretically she could just carry on living there without too many questions or legal involvement.
Thanks for getting this far! I would really appreciate any wisdom.
P.S. Just to be clear, we don’t want anything from MIL’s estate! We are just curious as to how protected other family’s are from dishonest executors as it feels like it could be easy to exploit people :(

I am assuming your MIL lived in England or Wales. The most obvious way to see the will is to wait for probate to be granted as the will is then published. You can put a watch on probate so you are notified when it is granted. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/find-a-will-or-probate-document-form-pa1s

Note: my understanding is beneficiaries are not entitled to see the will until probate has been granted.

Sadly there is no time limit to apply for probate - your SIL could leave it for years. However, if the estate is liable for IHT then this must be paid within 6 months. This may lead to probate being applied for.

The last way will cost and requires legal advice. If you have a valid reason you can apply to the court for a copy of the will. IANAL so what is considered a valid reason I don’t know. As the items that potentially have been left to others are of sentimental rather than £ value the question is how much are you prepared to pay to see the will. I always consider sentimental items to be the most valuable so a one off appointment with a solicitor to find out your options may be worth it.

Sadly I think you have to prepare yourself for the fact the funeral may not be what your MIL wanted.

@Bollocksmorelike I meant to say the power executors have can be used as a weapon to hurt others. I know this only too well.

I am so sorry you are going through this.

The executor is personally liable for distributing the estate as per the will. She will have to apply for probate because of the property so you will get to see the will then and can ask about any bequests. If she says the item can't be located though there's not much you can do.
If the executor is executing an unusually favourable will or anything else is off you can always consider police involvement as it would be fraud. That's clearly not the case for you though. So the answer is she can muck up the small stuff (in value not sentimental worth) but she is legally obliged to play ball on the big stuff.

Thank you so much for your replies, they are very helpful.
I think all the siblings are resigned to their mum not getting a funeral now (even though it’s not what she wanted), and they are not expecting to receive any of the items she wanted them to have.
None of them want the upset of courts or police, understandably. They are not a close family at all, and it was expected that she would inherit everything.
It’s more the feeling that she is being trusted to do things correctly when the reality is she is unlikely to! I think I had presumed a solicitor would oversee things.
thanks again xx

would the solicitor not be obliged to ensure she followed the will re distributions?

Apparently not. Unless Tammy asks them to deal with the will etc. And the solicitors have confirmed to us that Tammy hasn’t requested that.

I think that the system needs changing in this country. The will should be legally logged online for (at the very least) relatives to see before probate is granted. The current system just seems to allow dodgy executors to get away with fraud. It seems so common and they get away with it.

I agree. It seems really off that no one will check what she does.

When MIL drew up her Will with the Solicitor, I’m sure they would have advised her to have more than one Executor, but she obviously took the decision to just trust her affairs with Tammy. Let’s hope Tammy is receiving advice on how to get Probate and knows about paying any IHT that may be due.