Inheritance question

[fragglerockless]

My child's father (my ex-husband) died very suddenly last year without a will.

He had no will and no material assets, house etc. However, he had worked for his company a long time and his pension/death in service was pretty generous.

The only living relatives for him were my child and an older child from a previous relationship (now an adult who had no relationship with their father, didn't attend funeral)

I am having difficulty getting the death in service benefit paid. Company have received a copy of the death certificate and my child's birth certificate. However, they will not make a decision or pay out until adult child sends in their birth certificate. Despite being asked multiple times they are not sending it in. Company have said no decision can be made until birth certificate sent in.

Is there anything that can be done? It seems very unfair that my child is having their inheritance withheld, they are under 18 so wouldn't have access to it but not the point. What if it never gets sent in?

Also, what happens to the interest? If the pay out had been timely it would now be sat somewhere earning interest for the next few years whilst my child reaches 18. At the moment the money is still with the pension provider which presumably they are benifitting from.

Is any able to shed any light on what happens in these circumstances?

You can order a copy of any birth certificate on line. Why not get a copy of the adult child’s and send it in yourself.

The adult child will have the same claim on the death benefit as your child. Does not matter that there was no contact.

You can get a copy of their birth certificate and send it in.

There's a cost.

www.gov.uk/order-copy-birth-death-marriage-certificate

I'm not disputing their claim.

I should have added as it's probably relevant adult child was not born in the UK, so not sure if I can just order a birth certificate but I will look into it.

Have you asked the company how they plan to proceed and what time limits they have in place?

Is the company writing to the adult child directly? I would expect the second or third letter to say something along the lines of 'if we don't receive a response or certificate by 30th March we will assume you do not want to proceed with any claim and cease contacting you further'.

The adult child may be ignoring the letters due to the lack of relationship but this should not be that unusual to the company and they ought to have a procedure to cover it.

It's possible that the birth certificate needed has to be notarised so even if one could be sourced it wouldn't be acceptable unfortunately.
Good luck OP, this stuff is an utter ball ache.

Don't you usually have to name the beneficiary for these sort of benefits? I always have...

I wonder if the mother of the adult child might be a good person to contact if you haven't already? You could explain you're both losing money in interest while they're delaying. Especially if they're a young adult, they might need a bit of help or support.

Does the adult child know their non Co-operation means your child’s money is being held up? Maybe contact them directly and see what the issue is?

I have processed these for a company myself and I think it should be possible for them to do an initial payment. I would ask them if their position is that both children will get a 50/50 split if the birth certificates are provided and, if the answer is yes, they should be able to pay your child's 50% now - for death in service.

Basically the trustees of the death in service scheme have to get all relevant information and understand possible claimants and then decide how to allocate. Even if a declaration of beneficiaries had been made this isn't binding. But they should totally be able to make a decision now which is basically that if there are two children they will get x% each and if there is only one they will get 100%.

Pension I'm less sure, I assume he hadn't made a declaration of beneficiaries? As I thought that was binding for pensions.

Company has contact details for adult child as I included adult child's details on the form I sent in after the death. Adult child and also their mother were initially sent this form, but failed to complete it, so I did in the end.

They have not given a time limit on how long we wait for adult child to send in their certificate. That is all they need to do as I have completed all the other paperwork.

I have been in contact with adult child's mother who is well aware of the situation, still no birth certificate forthcoming. It is incredibly frustrating. Ex-husband was an absolutely useless father to all his children, hence the ex.

Pension company haven't said if he made a declaration of wish and I haven't asked if he has or who that was. They have asked for possible beneficiaries which I have given them, my child and adult child, there are no other living relatives and he wasn't in a relationship.

Are you sure the funds aren’t still invested within the pension? It might not be the case that it’s sat in cash and losing interest.

If you can’t get a birth certificate yourself I would write to the the adult child. It sounds like perhaps they don’t want anything to do with it all if they had no relationship with their father. I would ask them nicely to send it in or pass a copy to you and explain that your own DD cannot receive anything until they have received all birth certificates and acknowledge that while they may understandably not want anything from the pension, that your own DD will benefit from saving any money forthcoming for future uni costs, driving lessons ect ect.

They have not given a time limit on how long we wait for adult child to send in their certificate.

Has it been 12 months since the death? That seems like a minimum time to wait for paperwork to be provided or 6-12 months from the initial request. At some point their procedure should conclude they aren't going to get it and proceed with a 50% payment to your child.

Further down the line the procedure may conclude the other 50% is not going to be claimed by the adult child and therefore that too is payable to your child but that could be 2-5 years down the line. Claimants cannot turn up a decade later and expect to get a share of death in service.

It sounds like the adult child is unwilling to send it in as he wants no part of his father's legacy. Perhaps the mother could help confirm that one way or another?

Most death in service benefits pay out a multiple of the employee's salary. That's not going to change: there is definitely an opportunity cost to not having the money now.

As for what OP can do, depending on your relationship I'd suggest writing to the adult son to say something along the lines of "if you don't want your father's money that's your choice, but you are actively preventing your half sibling from receiving theirs. I'm sure you don't want any more reminders of your father's selfishness, neither do we."

I echo writing to the adult child, perhaps even call her. I know she didn’t want to go his funeral but I struggle to believe that they want no part of his legacy, at least right now. Maybe they’re confused at the moment and processing your late partner’s death.

Is the father actually named on the birth certificate do you know? Maybe that is the reason for delay.

I would start googling how to obtain the birth certificate from the country the older child was born it to move things along as this benefits your child it is worth spending the time to do it because clearly something is stopping the mother or the adult child providing it.