Scottish inheritance law.....

[broguemum]

OK, maybe more a rant than enything but I would dearly love to hear from anyone who has any experience of Scottish inheritance law.

My PILs live overseas as do I. My FIL died in 2006 and in a fit of altruism I offered to help my MIL deal with the UK estate.

The thing is that in the eyes of the law in Scotland he was intestate since he had no will. He did however have a marriage contract where everything passed automatically to his wife. He had some assets in Scotland that we are trying to get transferred to his wife. This has taken nearly 2 years so far and we still aren't there. We are using a solicitor but it just seems that we have to produce more and more documentation, affadavits etcetera and I am begining to get a bit cranky about the whole thing.

Is it normal that it takes this long to deal with an estate? It's not complicated; just one bank account so why is it taking so long?

You should have been able to take the marriage contract (never heard of those) assuming it was a legal document into the bank and they may well have transferred it for you - depending on the amount of money in it.

If in doubt or not happy with anything speak to the lawyer dealing with it for you. If still not happy speak to or write to the firm's Senior Partner.

In my experience a simple estate should take approx 6-9 months to deal with.

Thanks inscotland. I think part of our problem is that everything is in French, we have to get it translated and the whole marriage contract and inheritence certificate are not concepts that the Scottish courts are familiar with. I don't suppose my MIL phoning up and ranting in broken English to them helps either.

I don't want to upset anyone (that sounds a bit pathetic) but I suspect I should speak to the senior partner as this has been going on too long.