Grandfathers widow syphoning off all the estates money

[Flum]

Boo hiss. DHs Grandfather died two years ago, his 4th wife was left well cared for with several hundred grand in capital in trust and a very healthy income. The Will says she can dip into the capital if she needs too, but any that is left over after her death passes in trust to the 4 grand children.

Here is what she is doing: saving all the income, spending capital to live on. So therefore emptying out the estate so there will be nothing left for grand children.

we can

a) Let her carry on and write off the money, since no guarantees of it anyway.

b)Take her to court, it is a sticky legal issue and could well drain the estate anyway (we are v. happy to do this as we will lose out anyway)

Any other thoughts/ideas.

We feel what she is doing is morally wrong, but our solicitor has even said maybe it is better for her to spend/keep the money than to drain it all out through the court process.

The whole thing leaves such a nasty taste in mouth. Grandad wanted her well looked after but she is feathering her own familys nest at the expense of his.

surely if the capital is in trust, then the trustees have to approve its use? Who are the trustees?

I've had family money taken & it's awful. Document everything & get advice on what it technically means "if she needs to"

How old is she? & how mentally/physically able is she? could you get an extended power of attorny placed on her if you could prove she wasn't able to manage her money. You would need a professional opinion on her state of health. She wouldn't need to agree to this but you & others could then control the money.

meant enduring poa - check out www.publicguardian.gov.uk/decisions/asking.htm

Similar thing happend to dp. His grandad married a younger woman and when he died all his money went to her with the proviso that she would leave it to his family when she died. She met some awful dodgy bloke who got power of attorney and syphoned off most of it but when she died she left the rest of it to 18 different people. So mil will get one 18th of not very much and dp gets nothing.

Tbh dp has dealt with this by completely letting it go and having no expectations of her as he went seriously off her when he went to tell her that his dad had died and she just said 'oh dear' and changed the subject This was her step son and she wasn't even bothered at all, dp was very, very upset

He couldn't bring himself to go to visit her anymore and just decided to forget about her and her money. We could have badly done with it but I respect his stance.

Oh, sympathies, Flum, we have a similar situation, too (how common it seems to be!). DH's grandfather died about 15 years ago leaving a second wife 20 years his junior and an estate worth (at the time) about £1 million. A lot of the estate was in tenanted land and property and she was meant to get the income but not touch the capital which was left in trust to dh's father and his sisters. The widow seems to have been plundering the estate pretty freely, however. She is an executor and trustee and the other is her solicitor, who seems to have colluded with her. DH and one of his cousins have been trying to make them provide the annual statements that they were meant to (but didn't) and made some progress but it's such a time-consuming business, particularly when you're blocked at every step. I don't think they can really get to grips with it until the evil-step-grandmother dies, by which time, of course, it will probably be too late.

Good luck.