Advise re will

[Illjusthavethebreadsticks]

My partner and his brother have always had a very difficult relationship over the years. After some cajoling from his brother to their mum she wrote a will requesting that the older brother gets 75% and his brother (my partner) gets 25%. When my partner was informed of this he queried it with his mum and she agreed she shouldn’t have done this and the will was changed to 50% for each brother.
We have a copy of that said will.

Their mum died earlier this year and his brother as executor has sorted out all the probate etc. He has told my partner that he will be getting 25% as he has 4 kids and we have 1!! So basically ignoring what the will says.

My partner queried the 25% and after a lot of abuse from the brother he is not backing down and says he is willing to go to court over this.

where do we go from here ??

He cannot legally distribute differently to the will. He's breaking the law.

Might be worth checking that the will wasn't changed again- you can get a copy online.

If the brother hasn't followed what was in the will he is personally liable and your partner can take him to court. Would suggest you see a solicitor.

If he has probate he will have signed legally binding documents that require him to distribute the proceeds of her estate as per the will. Find a lawyer. Do you have legal cover via home insurance?

If the will specified a 50/50 split, that is what the executor must do. If he goes to court he will lose. On the information posted, he doesn't have a leg to stand on.

You firstly need to get a copy of the grant of probate and the Will that was admitted to probate. You can get this from the Probate Registry for a small fee.

The reason this is important is that the brother may have submitted the original Will for probate, ignoring the later one, which makes things a lot more complicated. Your partner would then need to apply to the Court to revoke probate and seek to have the later Will admitted.

If he has probated the later Will and is simply ignoring its terms then your brother has the right to apply to the Court for an order compelling his brother to provide a full account of the estate and to pay your brother his 50% share.