Mums Will, failed!

[1452kc]

Husband(H) and Wife(W) walk into a Solicitors(S) to make the W Will, both H and W are present in the same room at the Will writing. W has been unwell for a number of years and will, just a few weeks from now pass away. H and W have lived separate lives for many years, separate beds, separate rooms and if finances would have allowed, separate houses. They have no children, H has no children, W has adult children from a prior relationship. H and W bought a house together over a decade earlier, the house they live in, the bulk of the purchase was made with W money, which included inheritance from W parents and blood relatives. However they own the house 50/50. H is somewhat controlling and abusive.

W tells S she wants to leave her half share in the house to her children, S adds to the Will, i assume after informing W this is what would be needed, that 'there was to be no restriction on the sale of the property' and 'no life interest for the H'. The point of these statements was to ensure the children got the W share in the house upon her death, not decades(?) later when the H dies. The H has significant funds of his own after inheriting his own fathers house.

During this meeting about the Will, the S asks these laypeople(H and W) 'is the house held as JT or TIC', what layperson know the ramifications of that? Anyway, S states in his notes that the(who responded?) response was 'TIC'. As the house is held as TIC what W has put in her Will, ie leave her share in the house to her children, is valid. Anyone can check the Land registry for a few £'s to find out the answer to JT, TIC, why didn't the S or S secretary do so? Why even ask the question? S should confirm with the source(Land Registry). Lazy, negligent, stupid, in on it? The H and S were both male, same age, etc.

Around a week later H walks back into S office and asks 'what if the property is not held at TIC?', S states, ' you will need to discuss that with your W'. S does not contact W. H does not talk to W.

A few weeks later W passes.

Turns out property as documented at the Land Registry is held as JT. Therefore W share passes to H and Will is worthless.

There may be paper work at the property that severed the JT, but that cannot be accessed. H will not allow it.

So the issue is the TIC vs JT. Many argue a course of action can severe a JT without any formal paper work explicitly severing the JT. If you apply for divorce it's likely you don't want to leave your share to your soon to be ex partner. Equally if you make a Will in front of your partner that states you want to leave your share to your kids, not them, surely that severs the JT. It's just common sense. Another point is, both(we will never know) H and W stated the property is held as TIC during the Will writing, that's a mutual agreement right there, a bit like saying 'i do' in the church.

So why does H now own 100% of the house? What a bs legal system. Deliberately grey, it should be a flow chart.

So how do we go back and get JT changed to TIC, so the Will is effective and the children can get their inheritance.

Thanks

Feeling for you OP
We are in the middle of a sort of contentious trust action. The solicitors, who even informally admitted the blatantly clear fault seem, in my non-legal opinion, to be dragging it out to escalate costs and get us to back down. Luckily found expert representation to help us.
It’s not just the financial cost, it’s the moral injury they have caused to the wishes of the deceased.

Contact the Solicitors’ Regulation Authority and lodge an official complaint against that Solicitor ASAP.

Ask them all.

I think that the idea of contacting the Land Registry to check the registration is an excellent idea

The SRA, bought and paid for by Solicitors.

Ok
Now we know you're either drunk, trolling or genuinely don't have any idea how this works!!!

Good luck.

I agree with this
The decision was taken 19 years before and there is no evidence that clear instructions to alter it were given

The LR are extremely helpful, I would check the registration and check to see if anything has been submitted ie SEV-1.

The SRA is a strict, and good regulator, which does sanction members.

Maybe, except they have already been presented with this, and they did nothing.

And i quote.

"The Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) is primarily funded through annual practising certificate fees collected from solicitors and law firms, which are mandatory payments required for individuals and firms to practice law; essentially, the majority of their funding comes from the solicitors they regulate by charging fees to practice law. "

They are bought and paid for by Solicitors. Sorry folks.

It may be that they found nothing to persue...

I quote: He currently lives alone in the family home, a large 4 bed, double garage, detached property, he also inherited a large home
if you want more info, the notes also say the H would move into a large camper home the W gifted him, this was a peace deal
Is the ‘large home’ the one he lived in with his wife?
If he is over 60, and you do manage to prove the house was owned as TIC when your DM died, you would have yet another battle to get him out of the house - the best bet would be that you’d receive your share from your DMs will when he dies.

I mean you can check!

You continually saying the solicitor should have checked the LR doesn’t make that the law

How do you account for the fact that it regularly makes findings against solicitors?

bearing in mind 1in5 Wills prepared by solicitors fail to some extent, don't you think they should do something to improve their work? Would you get away with that rate of failure in your work?

But the point is that solicitors have to fund it as a condition of practising. It's not like the SRA has to keep them happy in order to keep the funding.

That’s a different argument

The point is that, if you are pursuing a claim, you will need to satisfy a judge that what you think should have happened is generally accepted as good practice. Hence my question as to whether you have a witness statement from a wills expert or backing from the standard textbook. You may think it's common sense, but you are going to get nowhere unless you can show that it's generally accepted by at least a substantial body of other wills and probate experts.

The reason it keeps coming back, is because a number of people here are like 'the Solicitors don't have to check the LR', 'They can ask a geriatric, dementia ridden, 100 year old and take their answer as gold on a legal technical question' and some of the people here think that's a reasonable way to work.

And you could argue its overkill to check the LR, except it's not, because it takes 2mins, cost £7 and secures the most valuable thing you will probably ever own. And currently 1-5 wills fail to some extent, and this one failed because of that.

Legal, up your game to a reasonable standard, right now your game sucks, its well below an acceptable standard. Thankyou for some of the advice, i will think on it. Good night.

What the solicitor should or shouldn't have done also depends on the will service being provided and charged for. There is a massive difference between the different service levels offered - if it was a cheap write up service then it would have been within scope to be based on information provided by the person only, as its recording their wishes only no actual advice and it's on the individual if it fails due to misinformation by them. It's a write up/recording exercise only and making sure the will is correctly signed etc.

If it was a full Will service, advice and estate planning comes into it and then yes it's a very valid expectation that the title to property be checked.

There can (rightly) be a big difference in the fee, and lots of people go for the cheaper option but it is entirely at their own risk to do so.

If the firm have let this go to court then they strongly stand behind their position on it which would imply that the Will service your mum opted for didn't include advice and was a write up based on client instructions only job, in which case solicitor not liable for gifts failing.

You are missing some of the point - many many people do not pay for advice on their will, only a lower fee and service to write up their wishes. They are told very clearly that advice is not included in the fee but still opt for it as do not want to pay more. There is a huge element of get what you pay for with Will services.

Now we don't know which type of will service your mum went for, but it is a possible explanation that validly justifies why the land registry details were not obtained, ie your mum may not have opted or paid for a service that would have checked them. She would have been asked to pay the Land Registry fee if it was. If the solicitors scope of work did not include for it then they aren't negligent and have no case to answer - however frustrating that is

For any legal experts, would matters have been materially different if the children had paid for their mother's wishes to be recorded in a fresh will? In that situation, would they have grounds to seek compensation from the solicitors?

Someone with dementia cannot legally make a will. I personally have known solicitors break the law knowingly at least 4 times over wills. In all cases the individuals making the will were very unwell and were being manipulated by greedy relatives. In one case it was someone pretending to be a relative. How far can/ does one check?
Unfortunately, leaving things very late can often lead to errors.

😂 Right...

The SRA is incredibly aggressive when intervening law firms. They literally walk in and shut them down the same day. I literally worked for a law firm that did this for the SRA. The SRA is most definitely not some kind of old boys club that protects their own.