Hi all,
Thank you for all of the responses so far, I have read them all this morning.
@saraclara, I think you have interpreted my posts exactly as I meant them, this has been very helpful. It probably should have been in legal, but I came onto the board thinking my legal advice was ‘done’ and I was looking at financial management. @Dinkler, in your shoes I would have been sceptical of this set up too, particularly since it seems I’ve either been given dodgy advice and/or misunderstood it, thank you for your honesty.
@sparkleice, definitely not a reverse (I sort of wish it was, that might be easier…)
I will be absolutely clear and say there is no way I would try and overcomplicate or eke out this process, I just want it done and I do not want to look after money belonging to someone else. DSis is in agreement, given her circumstances the last thing she needs is a pile of savings that don’t belong to her. I’m glad to have clarified here that I’m clearly wrong about how that works. Even if we can’t find her (highly unlikely), she has twenty years to decide whether to claim her share, I certainly don’t want that hanging over me although I suppose some people might take that chance. @Katrinawaves I agree that having money sitting there is just too big a temptation, no matter how much I trust myself and DSis – it was one of the reasons I was looking for a secure way to store it. It does feel as if it’s becoming unnecessarily complex, and neither DSis nor I are looking for drama, we’re just trying to navigate a situation neither of us have been through before.
@JKrowlings I’m not sure what you mean? I am still waiting to be confirmed executor, so nothing has been paid out, there have been no delays on that score. If you are referring to my mother never making contact in her lifetime, well – yes, I agree that’s shit.
To answer some other questions that came up:
Half sister is the child of my mother and her first husband. They divorced when she was two. I have the divorce papers and custody documents but very little detail. At the time of the custody hearing apparently there had been no contact from my mother for 6 months. I don’t know why this was, it’s certainly not how I would have acted, but I suspect there were some mental health issues at play and perhaps the longer it went on, the harder it became for my mother to establish contact again. This is speculative though. Half sister has a stepmother who has been on the scene since the time of the divorce, and there was no adoption to my knowledge, so she remains legally one of my mother’s children.
Yes, my own father died several years ago.
There is no one in the family who knows where she is, but as PP have said, I imagine she will be very easy to track down given the details I have. I have never tried to contact her for fear of upsetting my mother, and obviously things are still a bit fresh, but I can see now that I’m being overly cautious about how and when this news reaches her, and that I can’t let it impact on my legal obligations.
Solicitor is well reputed (and Scottish), and therefore I’m now wondering if I’ve misunderstood what he said (I don’t think I did, he certainly talked about putting it in savings, but maybe he meant with a third party….? That doesn’t explain the indemnity though). I’m sure he did say they couldn’t hold onto it though which seems odd. I will definitely go back to him with further questions regarding this and give clear instructions prior to the money becoming available to pay out.