Dumb question on wills

[TheOGCCL]

Maths really isn’t my strong suit…

Let’s say an estate is worth £100,000. The will states it should be split fractionally as follows:

4 people receive 1/4
2 people receive 1/18
2 people receive 1/30
4 people receive 1/75
1 person receives 1/150

How would each person’s share be calculated?

I'm struggling with 4 recieve 1/4. That's 100% gone to those four. So the fractions don't add up which doesn't help

100,000 x numerator / denominator

Eg 100,000 x 1 / 150 .

NB If 4 people receive 1/4 each that's the whole estate gone!!!!

As long as the £100k estate has £200k in it, it should be easy...

Do you mean the first one quarter of the estate is split between the 4 people. ie £25,000 ÷ 4.

Did somebody actually draw up a will in those terms?

The percentages need to add up to 100% In this case they don't. For example, the 4 people left 1/4 of the estate ie 25 % each,mean they get the whole thing split between them. The percentages need revisiting. Hopefully the person is still alive to enable the will to be rewritten. A solicitor should be able to help get the maths right when it is being drafted.

The first four receive it all.

I can't believe a will is written like this because as others have pointed out it isn't possible to apply.

1/4 is 25%

So the first 4 people received 100% of the estate.

If its being written it needs to use the same denominator (bottom number) for everyone

So it might say

4 people receive 25/150
Etc etc

but the top number all added up can't be more than 150

This is a real life will.

I missed out 1 person (a charity) at 1/100. I’m glad it’s not just me. I thought there must be some kind of established logic for this.

The 1/4 shares are referred to as a share of the ‘real and personal estate’ in a separate clause. All the other fractions are referred to as ‘pecuniary legacies absolutely and free of taxes, x gets x (e.g 1/30th) part of my estate’. Both seem like ‘the estate’ but maybe it’s different.

If you're an executor, consult a solicitor.

Are the 1/4 fractions to be distributed after the lower fractions (i.e. 4 people each get 25% of the estate remaining after everything else is paid out)? That’s the only way this even vaguely makes sense.

That's appallingly written.

I would assume, if it was all written at one time, that the 4 inherit 1/4 of the estate between them, but you need to get proper legal advice as the fractions aren't remotely clear.

In my MIL's will for example hers is split into 3 - her sons get 1/3 each and her grandchildren share the other 1/3, but it's very clearly written as "my grandchildren get an equal share of 1/3" rather than "6 get 1/3" as that wouldn't make sense

After this vital clarification I think how it's intended to work is that all the non-quarters receive their stated share of the 100K
2 people receive 1/18
2 people receive 1/30
4 people receive 1/75
1 person receives 1/150

I CBA to add it up but it feels like about a quarter of the original total. So that leaves around 75 grand which is split 4 ways between the people who were left a quarter each.

Get it to a solicitor and it will probably make sense.

Thank you to everyone who has replied. This is a will drawn up with/by a solicitor. Presumably we’d be better off consulting a different one…
Hopefully we can make it make sense. I see pecuniary legacies are meant to be specific sums so that seems to be where things go a bit off track. As you could give those out and then split the rest into quarters.

@NinetyNineOrangeBalloons That’s where I was going too.

It would work if each portion was divided by the number of people receiving it, eg one quarter divided among 4 people.

It doesn't need to total 100% because the remainder might be going elsewhere, eg charity.

Although OP's further post about "real and personal estate" and "pecuniary" suggests some physical assets (eg house) to be split in quarters to 4 people, and money assets to be split in odd percentages to the other people.

It's possible to do that although I don't remember what the legal wording is.

So, with my bad maths abilities I read it as

4 people will share 25,000 between them
2 people will share 5,555 between them
2 people will share 3,333 between them
4 people will share 1,333 between them
1 person will receive 666.
And the charity will get 1,000

Although if you leave out the 4 people getting 1/4 - and add up the other shares as if they were getting the fraction each (e.g. 2 people getting 1/18th each, it would be a total of 11,111 etc.) Then it would add up to almost 25000. So maybe they meant it to work out that 3/4s would go to the first 4 people 75,000, and the last quarter would be divided out among the rest in those fractions...

But it's a total mess.

What country was the will written in? "Real and personal estate" seems to be an American term which means mostly physical assets: land/buildings and personal possessions. But not money or financial assets.

https://ascentlawfirm.com/difference-between-real-and-personal-property/

So the intention may have been to split house and possessions in one way (quarters to 4 people) and financial assets in another way. If the physical assets were disposed of (eg house sold) during the person's lifetime, then obviously there isn't anything left in that portion to inherit. Those beneficiaries won't receive any of the financial assets unless they were specifically named in the pecuniary section.

If you're an executor and pay out to the wrong people you're personally liable. You should seek legal advice, they may well advise you to apply to the court for directions as to how the estate should be distributed.

How so? The 200k is still gone if the 4 people have their 1/4th (50k each). I'm no.mathematical genius but this makes no sense whatsoever.

I would sue the solicitor for malpractice .... they are going to have to pay the cost if sorting this mess out.

Without another wills & probate solicitor seeing the will in full you can't know that. There's an obvious and reasonable intention behind the will: only a specialist looking at the full document can tell you whether the drafting has actually achieved that intention.