New bride from abroad and sadly Father In Law has died.

[Jooleshop]

My elderly, unwell widowed FIL met a lady on line and started a relationship. He married her about 6 months ago and she has been back to her home more than staying in the UK with her new husband.
Unfortunately my FIL passed away while his wife was away again.
Her British Citizenship has not yet been finalised and it seems they both lied on documents to say they have lived together for a year before they were married.
It seems that my FIL has taken equity out of the small bungalow to pay for many things abroad.
When my FIL needed his wife she was not there.
It now seems all she wanted was the money and not a real relationship with my FIL.

A year and a half ago my FIL discussed his will and his money would pass on to the grandchildren when he passed.
Now it seems the old will is void as he got married, so everything goes to his new wife, who is flying to the UK in a few days... Now her husband has passed.

Does anyone have a clue if we can contest the new wife? In hind sight she is not what she seemed at the time.
We don't have a lot of money and a nest egg for the boys would be wonderful!
It feels wrong that his wife left him when he was ill and he died alone...
Now she's coming to claim the house etc...

Any help greatly appreciated.

They did get married in Bangkok and now checking all was registered properly... We phoned her pre flight to get FIL moved to Chapel of rest and suddenly the tears stopped and the reply of ... I no understand and a swift hang up.
A very canny message arrived later...

will arrive in England on October 28th, according to the ticket I sent to Mark. If I am available to talk, I will send you a message to tell you when and where I will be available to talk. As for my husband's body, I don't know what to do. Let me get there first, then I will be able to answer. Because everything has to be done according to tradition, which I don't know what it is. I have sent an email to the hospital. The hospital has given me a contact number. In this regard, I have a volunteer interpreter from the Thai Embassy in London and a volunteer interpreter from the DSI Network who are waiting to coordinate with me. I will be informed according to the legal process. At the moment, I can't answer you. Let me get to England first. Then I will contact you back. If you want to talk to me, please send a message. Because I can't communicate or talk back to you. And I want to communicate with you correctly. Sometimes it may take a long time. Because I have to send it to the interpreter to translate. Thank you for your kindness in calling me. I am very grateful. And the most regretful thing is that my husband died suddenly. I will try to be as mindful as possible because I want to see my husband again. Even if it's just a lifeless body, I want to hug him and say goodbye to him again.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

I do feel this now this is an organised con and maybe FIL wasn't her first... She is 55 ISH and FIL was ten years older but in poor health.

If that is the case they are on top of everything and I don't think we'll have a leg to stand on.
We will keep looking and hoping.

Please please let this be a warning to all... don't get swept away with the romantic idea be a realistic!!!

I don't think her text was bad? Sounds like she doesn't have any info yet.

If she was 10 years younger and English would you be suspicious?

Yes it does

You blame her, when actually FIL should have updated the will to include the grandchildren especially as he was poorly.

It's usually easier to blame the younger foreign wife. Especially if she comes from an impoverished place.

Such a shame that FIL wasn't more savvy and didn't make a new will to include the grandchildren

This is so sad. Is your Dh hurt that his father was so foolish, and to not provide for his grandchildren?

I think it is the fact that FIL died alone and his wife of months left him and took some more equity to return to Bangkok when he was poorly.
Sadly FIL didn't tell us how poorly he actually was, so hence died at home alone.

If his new wife was by his side and looking after him as she promised to do we would have no problems with her inheriting everything but, sadly she just was interested in equity payments for her house in Bangkok.

We welcomed her into our homes and hearts and were genuinely happy for them both.

If he didn’t tell you how poorly he was, is it possible he didn’t tell her either? Because he was in denial, genuinely didn’t know, or didn’t want her to think she had married a sick man?

I would say the text is more “put through google translate” than canny.

At 65, FIL was relatively young - poor health or not, the marriage might have lasted 10-20 years.

Why oh why do widowed men remarry? It can cause so many heartaches.

I’m really sorry this happened to your family
how horrible
sorry for your loss

Because (not unreasonably!) their priority is their happiness in their remaining life rather than people's financial gain after their death..?
It might be painful for those of us left behind but it's not difficult to understand their thought process.

Presumably she was in the uk on a visa and possibly couldn’t just stay here and live with her husband?

Exactly this!

And he could have written a will after marriage that gave something/everything to other family members still. It’s not the marriage itself that caused the issue.

He was 65 and - if he was able to travel to Bangkok - presumably of sound mind and not massively frail when he married. He was an adult making an adult decision. He wasn’t 99 and deep in dementia.

Edit: quoted wrong post and can’t delete the quote, sorry!

The 'elderly fathers' are never forced to marry women against their will. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, I'm afraid. I reserve my sympathy for the female children forced to marry men in their fifties in many parts of the world.

Yes indeed. The wife is in her 50ies when I read the OP I thought she was 23 or something.

I understand OP is grieving and trying to blame someone but it was up to FIL to sort out his finances and will. It doesn’t sound like he had dementia so I doubt getting a solicitor will get you far.

It very much sounds as if the OP is grieving for the money she feels her children are entitled to, even though it wasn't left to them, rather than for her FIL...

Of course exploitation of children is a world wide disgrace. But this was not what happened in this case.

Your dad wasn't elderly, he was in his mid-sixties.

I agree with others that I'd remove sentimental items from the house (morally justified even if not legally), then ascertain whether the marriage was legally valid. If it was, there's really nothing more you can do.

Yeah I think it depends how they met, but on the face of it a woman in her 50s with a man in his 60s isn't someone who you would think is a professional con artist. For all she knows, your FIL could have outlived her, or at least they could have had another twenty years together. If he was fit enough for a wedding abroad it sounds like his health decline was fast.

Just realised already addressed.

With so many late in life second (or subsequent) marriages, it really needs to be more widely known that marriage cancels a will.

I knew but that’s because my great grandfather’s second wife ended up with all of his first wife’s family money and her children didn’t get a penny.

... That was precisely my point 😂