Questions about probate and concerns over a cleaner inheriting everything

[MammarOfOne]

I’m wondering if anyone has insight into inheritance law and advice please.

A friend of mine passed way a couple of months ago.

She had no family at all.

She owned a house (worth about £250k) and money in the bank. No idea how much but she wasn’t RICH, just comfortable.

She always told us that her worldly goods was going to a charity that she had volunteered for as that is what her and her husband agreed before he passed.

She had a paid private companion carer (went every day to chat/help out with shopping etc) and a cleaner.

We do know that she was lonely as most of her friends had passed way and others like myself lived far away, but we chatted 3+ times a week and I know that others did the same.

We found out recently that she left everything in her will to her cleaner.
She didn’t even leave small gifts to her friends which was REALLY unusual. (I’m talking a stamp collection to someone who shared the hobby etc. Not money, just personal things).

For the last 6 weeks (since the day she died) the cleaner has been going into the house and leaving with boxes of items. At least one was a jewellery box, it was very distinctive and the neighbour noticed as she was the person that made it for my friend. The same box was later seen in a pawn/secondhand shop)

What are the rules around probate?

Can you just sell things before it’s sorted out?

They had her funeral last week and myself and other friends were very distressed that none of the things that our friend said that she wanted was included. Just a cremation, no ‘party’ afterwards. We feel so sad but we don’t know what to do. We don’t know if she was cohered (I believe she must have been) or if there was fraud. We just don’t know. There is no one to contest the will so we don’t know if we should get involved.

It is very hard and expensive to contest a will. Was she deemed of sound mind? Was she diagnosed with dementia or any cognitive issues?

Problem is people often say oh I will leave this tea set to you etc but it’s not included in the will or even in a letter expressing wishes they are just words said.

Unsure of the actual legalities but bumping.

IANAL. If your friend left a will then the executor will need to seek probate. Which can take some time before the estate can be administered.

Even if the cleaner is the executor and beneficiary of the estate it is unlikely that she has secured rights to seize goods as yet.

If there is no will then it requires that a person closely related seeks letters of administration.

It sounds very off.

what can you do?

call the police, and report a theft, step in and find out if there was a will. and if not who her closest relative is.

There are a number of solicitors who deal with intestacy rules, who will seek out the closest relative.

In practice there’s little you can do I suspect. A lot of this seems to be based on trust. I’ve heard of an executor not giving out legacies and there was no compulsion and no one checking. It’s an odd system.

There is definitely a will and 2 executors. One is the cleaner and the other is a friend. Unfortunately the friends partner became ill a few weeks ago and he is able to do very little As his partner is taking all of his time and energy.

it hasn’t been put into probate yet.

my friend was of sound mind to the end but she was vulnerable to being abused, she saw the best in everyone and truly believed that evil didn’t exist.

no one can believe that she would have gone against her beloved husbands wishes. Nothing was left to the charity at all, they both volunteered for 40+ years and we just don’t understand how it could happen.

she would have definitely left friends personal items, she even asked for my full details “so I can leave you my dolls for your GD”. If my friend said it, she would do it.

she sorted a will out in 2023, after her husband passed away. Although I do believe she used one of those that sit inside supermarkets and not a solicitor.

Thank you.

i know my friend and if she said something was going to happen, it happened.

when she sorted her will in 2023 she contacted at least 3 of us for out full details so she could leave something, she wanted to leave me her porcelain doll collection for my GD. I tried to dissuade her (I don’t have room for them!) but she was adamant.

I didn’t think that there was much that I could do but there has definitely been dodgy dealings and it angers me that someone has taken advantage of a wonderful friend.

i just thought that if it was illegal to sell items I could at least drop a spanner n the works for the cleaner.

Im genuinely upset that my friend got a rubbish send off when I know that she has a funeral plan and there was definitely money there to pay for it.

Your friend who is an executor of the will is the only person who can do anything about the situation.

As an executor of the estate he has a legal obligation to do so

Your friend the executor is the only person who can take any real action. These situations (where there is doubt as to the validity of the will and/or the actions of one of the executors) do arise and solicitors do specialise in dealing with them. But it can be complex - and expensive.
Your friend needs to contact a 'contentious probate' solicitor for advice. An internet search will bring up some names and some may even give some free initial guidance over the phone.

However It does strike me that there's a possibility that the will doesn't even pass the first test of validity. Does your friend the executor have a copy of the will? There are strict rules about who can witness a will for it to be valid. Who are the two witnesses to the signing of the will? If one of them is the cleaner who is also a/the only beneficiary then the will is invalid.

Your friend will still need to involve solicitors in this case but it should be much more straightforward.

assuming the will is valid and the cleaner is an executor who can act independently, or the other executor has agreed with the cleaner executor's actions, then yes things can be disposed of before probate is granted.
By "funeral plan" do you mean a prepaid one? I can't see why that wouldn't be used as they aren't refundable.

I've looked into this further and it seems that being both a witness and a beneficiary (or spouse of a beneficiary) doesn't render the will invalid but it does cause the gift to fail. So if the cleaner (or her husband) witnessed the will, the will is technically valid but she won't get anything under it.

To be frank, given the will is a DIY affair it would be well worth getting a probate solicitor to look at it as it is quite likely to contain flaws rendering it invalid.

This is because the requirements of the witnessing procedure are very precise and it is common to misunderstand or mess them up, even unintentionally. Your friend (the 'testator') should have signed her will in the presence of two independent witnesses over the age of 18 (and of sound mind) who are not beneficiaries or spouses of beneficiaries. They must both have been present at the same time and then signed their names in the presence of eachother. So basically all three of them must have been in the same room at the same time and each signed in the presence of the other two.

If the dates of the three signatures are not the same or look suspicious (eg are in different handwriting/appear to have been filled in by one person afterwards) then that is definitely worth pursuing. If your executor friend @MammarOfOne has a copy of the will and recognises one of the witnesses as the neighbour you mentioned, it would be worth contacting them to ask what they can recall about the witnessing procedure. Perhaps you could make the first approach if he, understandably, has a lot on his plate at the moment. You or he should take a detailed note of everything they say (dates, times, people, places) and pass it to the solicitor. If there is a question mark over whether the proper procedure was followed then the solicitors will get in touch with both the witnesses to get a proper statement. But everything you/your executor friend can do to give them as much relevant information as possible will save time and costs.

Good luck. It does sound like your good friend has been sorely exploited by someone she trusted.

Thank you. The thing is, I don’t think that anyone is going to spend money on a solicitor as there are no relatives and no next of kin. Maybe a very distant relative. (very very distant as she was an only child from a long line of only children. We did ancestry dna and I believe we found that it was only one child going back to the late 1800s! It blew my mind coming from huge Irish families!)

i just wondered if she was breaking the law selling stuff off before probate. The other executor went to the house today and was perplexed to find lots missing. I will enquire about the will signing.

by funeral plan I meant that she had it all wrote down what she wanted, readings and music and the exact sandwiches that she wanted serving! I know that unless it’s stated in the will, you don’t have to do anything but there is DEFINITELY money enough for a few sandwiches and cake and the readings wouldn’t have cost anything to do. (All of these instructions was in a folder with the will and other important documents. The cleaner would definitely have know about it. My friend spoke about her death a lot after her husband passed away)

it just feels very ‘I’ve got what I wanted and no longer need to play nice’. I can’t comprehend someone being like that. The cleaner didn’t even mention my friends long time carer (since 2019) and I could see the hurt on their face.
I know that the carer has received many calls from our friends to let them know how much we and our friends appreciated them. We didn’t want them to think that they had done something wrong.

Surely you should thank people that helped the deceased?

sorry I think this has just become a rant at how money can make people disgusting creatures.

i just feel so impotent that i can’t do anything for such a lovely person.

Do you know what charity was expected to benefit? If they are a large charity I would suggest contacting them. Many of them have dedicated legal teams who would likely pursue this.

This is a good idea. Although you say your friend was not rich OP, she still owned a house worth £250000 and had money in the bank. That's a substantial legacy that any charity would be glad of. If you contact them with your concerns and any information you can get from the witnesses about irregularities in the signing procedure, they may well have an in-house legal team to pursue it.

It's possible of course that this may not be the only will. Perhaps your friend did make an earlier one giving the bulk of her assets to the charity and making all the gifts of personal items she talked to you and her other friends about. If it can be shown that this will giving everything to the cleaner is invalid then that earlier one will be the one that counts.

It sounds like the other executor has access to the house. Could he do a thorough search of her files and documents to see if there is any evidence of another will? Notes, drafts, copies, references to it in any letters or correspondence?

@MammarOfOne Your friend really must step up and be the executor. It’s not optional. There could be a more recent will for example. And yes, he should be in touch with the other executor and engage a solicitor. He should get a copy of the will. There’s no excuse really.

I don't want to go all conspiracy theory on this @MammarOfOne but the illness of your executor friend's partner does seem to have coincided with the this very surprising will.

You mention that your friend died 6 weeks/a couple of months ago and the executor's partner became ill 'a few weeks ago'.

Is it possible that the cleaner became aware that your executor friend wasn't going to be in a position to ask too many questions when all his time and energy was focused on his partner? And she forged this will or tinkered with one already signed?

The timing of these events is very unfortunate for your executor friend and remarkably fortunate for the cleaner.

I think the original will (ie the actual physical piece of paper with the signatures handwritten in ink, not a photocopy, not a scan,) needs looking at very, very carefully indeed.

He should get a copy of the will.

He's an executor. He should get hold of the original will, not just a copy or a scan but the physical piece of paper.

He should examine it very carefully to see whether it might have been tampered with. And take it to a solicitor.

Solicitors who deal with these matters know what they are looking for. Even small and apparently innocent things such as a paper clip mark or staple holes on the will can raise a question that there might once have been an additional sheet which has been removed.

These things are taken very seriously. And rightly so.

I meant an original copy! An executor doesn’t have a photocopy normally !

I'm sure you knew what you meant! 🙂

I just wanted to make it clear that there is only one 'original' will, anything else is a 'copy' of some sort. There is no such thing as an 'original copy'. And it's impossible to tell from a copy how authentic it is. If there are two executors, only one of them can be in possession of the original will. In this case, although we don't have all the details, it appears the initiative and a great deal else has been seized by the cleaner who is the one in possession of the original will.

@Swiftmovingclouds yes and that’s why the other executor needs to step up and see the will.

"To be frank, given the will is a DIY affair it would be well worth getting a probate solicitor to look at it as it is quite likely to contain flaws rendering it invalid."

This, and similar advice, though no doubt well-intentioned, is basically pointless.

The OP has no legal interest in the estate, so has no basis whatsoever to challenge the Will. Consequently, although a probate solicitor might be quite happy to relieve her of a few hundred quid to examine the Will and advise as to its validity there's nothing the OP can do even if the Will turns out to be invalid.

The only person who can legally challenge the Will is someone who might realistically have expected to inherit from the estate and can supply evidence to support that expectation - for example an earlier Will naming them as beneficiary. In the absence of such a person then the only person entitled to challenge the Will is whoever would have inherited had the woman died intestate, namely the closest relative(s).

There is a huge amount of Will fraud going on - this BBC documentary gives some examples - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002gg4b - and people get away with it precisely because they target people with no close family.