Brother stealing from dead relative

[Namechangetimes100]

You might remember me from such threads as my brother faked being in the navy to con my dying dad out of £40k and have a slew of affairs and / or my brother is pretending to be in mi5.

all sound potentially fake but I assure you aren’t.

im not really posting for advice but just I need to get it out of my system because I can’t tell anyone in real life because it’s so fucking embarrassing.

He gets worse, prior to DF passing away about 6 months prior a close relative on dms side died and she was the next of kin, due to everything with DF the estate just kind of was left, until now. Dm enlisted b into trying to clear the house. Dm was largely unaware of what financial assets there were, bank accounts she knew about were frozen and funds used to pay funeral expenses, there was no will. Probate is still on going.

now to the pertinent part, dm found some investment and another bank account letters/ statements in the house, still coming through the letter box as no death certificate has been provided. She opened them, saw the cash inside the accounts (upwards of £20k) and put them in the box she was keeping for ‘important paperwork’, thought nothing of it, carried on cleaning, left the room and then came back to find b going through the boxes and pocketing the letters (which contain all relevant account info) he didn’t know she saw him. She asked what he was doing and he came up with some cover story about how she was mistaken. Days later, he’s asking for birthday and place of birth and if said relative had a passport (they didnt). M is concerned and right so given his past behaviour that he’s going to attempt to drain the accounts but yet she’s unwilling to do anything about it.

I’m not sure I can do anything as there is no branch near me, ive got 0 account info so I’d be calling with a random tip? Having worked in banking they might think me the fraudster? I don’t know.

i just can’t believe someone is such a low life.

he’s got a new girlfriend now and part of me thinks i should warn her, not that I’d be believed

best part is M wants me to invite him to my house with my kids for x mas!!! As if!

sorry I’m ranting but I just had to put this somewhere

It’s a very very long story but DF was generous to a fault, and he had a series of infections that made him incredibly confused and vulnerable and just ‘different’ , we’ve found this out post death at the time no one knew.

he was a very post war baby, you know brit pride, Nationalism and love loved loved anything with history and Pomp, so think like oxbridge, phds, university, the royals, the armed forces. Db never accomplished anything (poor results in all exams, not able to hold a job down aside from waitering) my theory is when db presented him with this fantasy he was sorting his life out, wanting to propose, DF wouldve given him the money with only some subtle cajoling and relavant comments from db, likewise for a house and biggie of all being a snr lieutenant commander (I think that’s the position db said he had) in the navy, and having this big ceremony to go to and all of these expenses. He’d have happily covered them even in the best of health in the hope and out of pride he was finally making something out of himself. He was always very generous to a fault, if you asked to borrow £5, he’d give you £100 and never ask for it back. I recall chatting to him about my graduation and he wanted me to get new clothes so sent me £1k, never asked but it was the type of thing he loved.

Following a funeral, the invoices are presented to the deceaseds bank and paid directly. Your mother did not need to take money out of the account to pay them. They would not have given her access.

Not open past 1 and the only lines of contact are branch/ email or phone. I’ve sent an email now too

i work for a bank. Don’t wait until Monday. Phone them today and tell them to put a family dispute block on the account. You can do this when you’re not named on the account and someone has died. It means no-one can make a withdrawal until they prove they’re next of kin. Your mother may be asked to provide a grant of probate to do this but it’ll be little money spent to save a lot of money being stolen. Once it’s gone, you won’t get it back even if you do take legal action. Which from the sound of it, your mother wouldn’t do anyway.

I don’t know, she said all the money was used to pay for the funeral and she had no problem with the bank despite not having gone through probate. This was a big bank, I don’t know the ins and outs, there was about £10k there and the funeral cost about 7 apparently

they aren’t open until Monday, I’d post a screenshot but it’s very outing as is

When the death was registered they would have given the info of how to notify relevant parties. If she had an estate then it would be going to probate. This doesn't ring true.

I have just looked it up and it is called Tell us once

You can read about it on www.gov.uk

That service isn’t for banks, I think. It’s for government and council stuff.

@Namechangetimes100
I don't know if you have seen my other posts look up Tell us once service on Google and it will tell you about the form to fill in to let organisations know your relative has died. It is very easy to do.

It specifically says it is not for banking. It’s only for government things - state pension, DVLA etc.

Well sorry you’re wrong. As someone who also worked in banking, with not the best fraud team I hasten to add, it’s on the next of kin to notify banks, council tax and pension stuff there’s a form but banks, at the bank I worked at the next of kin needed to present in branch with the death certificate and some form of ID.

there is a house too, and from what my mum was saying it’s just as is, she can’t do it up or anything because she’s not gone through probate. I’ve never dealt with anything like this before, ans was under the impression the asset gets seized if not acted upon but it hasn’t of yet

Yes that’s the form I’m referring to

Not an expert but A half hour consultation with a solicitor should give you enough information on how to proceed with this. And you wouldn't be doing it directly.
There are records such as Experian credit check which would uncover accounts/debts. Land registry to check property ownership. if it was done by an authorised person.
When we organised a relative's funeral, as far as I know and probate starts on registration and the relative's accounts were frozen, expenses were deducted by the solicitor to pay off all expenses when probate had completed. so I dont understand how your mother did this unless she just took the money out and paid directly.
Sorry but it sounds like your mother is helping him and covering up for him.

That’s what I think she did, she’s literally done nothing with the estate and she really needs to, the house is derelict and impinging on neighbouring properties due to structural issues, i think they are are petitioning the council to take some sort of action.

i don’t think she’s complicit and helping him in some sort of master plan to take money as it’s her money if she’d just do something about it, but she acts like an ostrich. Can’t even help her out because she gets in such a flap and she’s lost half of the important paper work. But by being so useless she’s inadvertently helping him

I agree with pp why are you bothering? Your brother won't change and I would let your mum sort it out, she doesn't sound like she had your back when you were younger.
Let them get on with it, you have no skin in the game if you aren't a beneficiary.

He could also be spinning her a line and she may be thinking she's protecting him.
If she doesn't want to deal with it, a solicitor would, I think you need one anyway without a will. We used one, and they took their fees out of the estate. Then your mother won't have to deal with it.

If she continues to ignore it and the house is derelict and impinging on neighbours who are complaining, sooner or later it will reach crisis point, cost more and be very disadvantageous to her, by that time your DB may have milked the spare cash out of the estate and your mother could be facing big bills ( for all I know and Im not an expert) Also do you want to wait until a smallish problem reaches a crisis point and you have to dive in and deal with it anyway.
Surely this has already gone on for a long time and you know exactly how your brother has been behaving. No one else is going to do anything, and sounds like you will be left to clear up the mess anyway - so why not take action now?

Why not find a solicitor and consult them? Then make an appointment with her to gather up the paperwork she has (or go round and help her) and take her along and get the ball rolling. She may take his advice more than yours and his will be the correct legal course of action. Otherwise she may end up taking DB's advice which is probably not legal and the last thing you'd want for her. She will probably be relieved you are taking charge as she clearly cannot cope with it all.

That’s what I said up thread, I’m really divided on what I should do, on the one hand morally I should inform the bank but on the other hand this sort of situation will keep happening with him because this is what he’s like, vile. And DM needs to learn her lesson, maybe even the hard way. Although I suppose in one way or the other, it will indirectly affect me as he and I will be joint beneficiaries of dms estate when the time comes and If he’s robbed chunks of it before hand. I think dm is just leaving the rest of the estate even though it’s probably best chunk of £80k because it’s too much effort and it will be someone else’s problem at some point.

all this to look forward to

Perhaps, but she did say to me she doesn’t trust him with the property so has had the locks changed just in case there is anything else there but she’d protect him to the end of the eartI.

well, ive got 3 young kids (one is a baby and I’m on mat leave) and live 4+ hrs away, it’s not as simple as popping around. I’m pretty loathed to spend money on a solicitor too, COL and mat pay and increased mortgage payments have hit us hard. DF tried and did everything bar a few steps (despite being very very ill) she just had to send of some paper work or something and sign a few bits but wouldn’t. DH and I, paid for workers and hired a skip to clear the property, she didn’t turn up with keys, she got busy. Plus I do think as they sole beneficiary it’s her responsibility, she needs to do something but won’t

Tell the bank there has been a security breach.

I would ring the bank on Monday. I suppose you have to try and protect your mother from your arsehole brother.

The bank won't speak to you unless you go in in person with whoever has power of attorney

Yeah they won’t speak to me about the account but I think I could maybe just inform them some of this info and reiterate that I don’t want any info about the account just to inform them, but they might view me as a fraudster too

Oh and what a surprise dm didn’t go to branch today

Yes of course they'll have to treat you with suspicion.