We’ve been cut out of the will.

[Nottellinganyone]

It’s taken me a while to realise it [slow on the uptake] but my FIL died a year ago and it properly came home to me last night that I’ve been cut out of the will - which isn’t that strange, as I’m only a widowed DIL - but also ds has as well. I really thought ds was a beloved grandchild, and after all we lost his dad when he was a teenager. No money but also no keepsake or message, nothing like a ring or a book or anything.

And now on top of that I feel like a fool for ever believing it was otherwise. FIL once described his will to us years ago when Dh was still alive, and he’d set up family trusts for each of his children and their own families. But I guess once Dh died that ended. I feel like I’ve been shoved out and the door slammed.

This is the thing though.

if there is no probate the will remains a private document and the executor does not have to share it will anyone.

there is no probate so you can’t pursue it through probate court.

so you need to take a civil case to force the executor to give you a copy of the will, if you are a beneficiary. This is a huge risk as it involves solicitors, court, ££££££££. If it turns out you aren’t a beneficiary, or it’s a very small amount, you’re on the hook for legal fees.

o/p, what you could do is see a probate solicitor and ask them to write to the executor for a copy of the will, as it’s a reasonable belief your child is a beneficiary. It’ll cost you a few hundred pounds, but worth it for the peace of mind knowing that’s as much as you can do. The solicitor will mean you don’t have to engage with the executor directly.

This happened to my family
My MIL estate was left in equal parts to her 2 children my DH being one of them If they were to die, then in equal parts to the grandchildren.(5 in total ,our 2 DC and 3 from my SIL)
My DH died aged 48 yrs old when our children were teens.
We assumed the will was as it had been above.
It was not, 3 months after my husband died my MIL (in her 90s) changed her will leaving everything to her other child (my SIL) and in the event of SIL death my SILs children.
My children were devastated because they felt they only mattered to their grandmother when their father was alive .
My children feel my SIL influenced this decision and it was never discussed and impossible to prove.
Bottom line is people can leave their estate to whoever they choose but it would have helped if my MIL had explained her decision to my children from a psychological point of view.

If FIL said he was doing it, then it's right to expect it, unless there's other circumstances OP hasn't mentioned.
OP, as others have said I would follow up, and just politely say that Jim had promised X for Leo, can they let you know if there's any admin you need to follow up on.
Sometimes people can be mean to their in-laws, and not prioritise seeing them, which obviously means they get nothing, but you don't mention any animosity or say that the family doesn't have a good relationship.

wtaf?! I mean nice for him but what happened there? Curious.

It’s very easy for an executor to simply not inform a beneficiary they’re in a will and keep the money.

if they aren’t aware they aren’t going to be checking the probate site for the will.

if the estate does not require probate- banks can release money without it, and it can be up to £50k- that over several banks and you can get away without probate even for some high value estates. If no probate the will is private and the executor does not have to show it to anyone if they choose not to.

which means a beneficiary has no way to know if they’re in the will.

if no one can see the will or bank accounts, there’s no way to prove the executor has acted fraudently, so the police cannot act. You have to take it through civil court to get the evidence first- £££££££

of course sometimes estate settlement is just slow. Selling houses, paying creditors, locating all beneficiaries etc…

It is very possible it’s still ongoing

My relative died in January 2025, and I am still working through the elements of the will and probate. Due to complications with a family business, we didn’t get probate until just before Christmas.

In the past couple of months as an executor, I have been gathering in the money and getting ready to pass it on

I still think it’s going to take me until September to have done it properly

If there is no public will there could still be trust deeds lodged somewhere. Maybe at the Companies Office. It's hard to know if you have been left out as you don't seem sure of what was left. Generally in this case your son would get his father's share as you probably already know.

It was probably a family trust, not specifically for his late father. It may have been dissolved years ago or may still be ongoing but no distributions have been made yet. OP has nothing to lose by making enquiries on her son's behalf.

Thank you all. The general message that it might well take longer is especially helpful - we’ve just wrapped up the administration of my mother’s straightforward estate including grant of probate in 3 months flat, so I may well be underestimating how long these things can take. Also very useful to hear about the TPS - the idea that after 2 years I might at least be able to find out what happened is very comforting.

I won’t take any legal action. In my view fighting over wills is an absolute waste of money and time, and more importantly eliminates any slim chance that I might reconcile with the estranged executor in the future. The executor is a sibling of my late husband. I would rather have a relationship at least between ds and them than get whatever was previously in the will. It is true that ds has a good degree and now has a good job - FIL may simply have thought that he could look after himself.

There were some straws in the wind - for example, seeing my FIL a few days before his death, there was a board in his room listing family members and neither ds nor I were on it. FIL was pretty on the ball to the end, but very understandably as he became more ill in his last months did forget some things, including things I’d done for MIL and things he’d asked me about, which when I then came back to him about he reacted as if I were trying to interfere.

I do think counselling and a gratitude journal are likely to help too. Thanks for responding, everyone.

But it does show what people thought about you and if you thought you had a nice relationship it leaves a sour taste in your mouth that they didn’t think of you in the same way.
And the way it has been shoved under the carpet says a lot of what everyone thought of the DS.
Whilst you are right that people can do what they want, there is going to be consequences to their actions. They might not be around to see it but to ignore one of the dgc seems personal and for the rest of the family to brush over the cut out seems deliberate

FIL once described his will to us years ago when Dh was still alive, and he’d set up family trusts for each of his children and their own families

To me that looks like the trust should have been there for his DS and for you and DS as being part of the family bit

No idea how you would go about it but I think you should look into whether the executor did their job for properly

If there has been some falling out the direction of the will and trust might not have been divided properly

This is how it is normally done, and also how it works without a will.

When a close relative died a year ago, it took nearly a year for probate to be granted. I had assumed the will was complicated (which I know take longer), but no, it was totally straightfoward. No trusts, just a straight forward legacy to his neice, and the rest to his two DC.
It then took another 5 months to for the neice to actually get the legacy.
This was dealt with by solictors.
My point being that it took much longer than I had expected.
So if the OP's FIL only died a year ago, as stated in the initial post, then it may yet still have to be resolved.
Obviously if the OP is correct and probate is not required, then I am not sure how you would find out.

I think it would be perfectly legitimate to gently ask the executor to clarify if anything was left to your DS. That this is not an attempt to be grabby merely that FIL had said he was intending to leave something to him.

This sort of thing can drag out for years if an estate is complicated.
Also, don’t trust an executor that you’ve had a difficult relationship with. While they have stringent legal responsibilities you can’t rely on them doing what they’re supposed to do. This is one of the issues with wills, it relies on ordinary people to deal with a lot of messy legal stuff, and just like in any area of life someone unpleasant or with an ulterior motive can’t be guaranteed to behave themselves in a decent manner.
Don't throw the towel in, you haven’t got enough information to just give in like that.

Why not? This was the woman his DS loved and the mother of his grandchild. I have a friend who's set up his will so that if any of his DS's die, their widows will still receive something.

Yep. I'm very touched that even my late DH's aunt included me in her will after he died. I'm to get whatever she had planned to give him.

No.

but if you are left something in a will, you just let it go because it’s not a requirement to be left anything?

there is a lot of executor fraud going on. It’s easy.

but you just think people should walk away from money that rightfully belongs to their child and let a fraudulent executor keep it?

Everyone (including OP) seems to be taking it for granted that DS has been disinherited. Until OP sees the will, she can't possibly know. It may well be that the executor is not doing his/her job properly, either through ineptitude or malice.

If sight of the will confirms no inheritance, then I would make peace with that and move on. But until the will is seen, there's no way I'd just bow out and potentially deprive my son of money that his Grandad wanted him to have.

@Nottellinganyone I'm in a similar situation, although was not married to the father so never had expectations for myself, just for my child.

The grandparents had 2 children, who each had one child, so only 2 grandchildren. Their son, my partner died when our child was 3.

Grandmother dies sometime later, then Grandfather dies a few years later. Despite them all being truly awful to me in the aftermath of my partner's death, (from whom there was nothing left for me to raise my child or for them to inherit due to business set-up and massive legal bills to sort everything out,) I still maintained a relationship for my child's sake.

The child visited and stayed with them often (school holidays) despite living a distance away. We even included my child's cousin in some of our holidays, etc. I fully expected my child to inherit substantially - what had been their father's share of the estate, as Intestacy Laws would dictate.

It's been 6 years since the grandfather died. No Probate filed for either so the Wills are not available to see online.

I eventually paid for and downloaded the land registry for their properties, which I knew had not been sold. It seems that a few years after my partner's death, they became owned by Trusts. I assume their entire estate was put into Trust, which can only be for the benefit of their daughter, and ultimately the other grandchild.

The grandchildren are both over 21, so if my child was a beneficiary, they should have heard by now.

Without the daughter filing for Probate, we can't access the Wills.

I attended the funerals to support them and take my child, when even closer family of theirs (biologically and in distance) did not. (Nephew, first-cousins.)

I've never asked her directly, as after the first year or 2 of understanding she might still be overwhelmed by grief, frankly I'm now disgusted that she never approached me about it despite us still being in touch.

But my mum did ask her recently (after 6 years) and she confirmed that my child didn't inherit, apart from £2k that each of the grandchildren received at 18. The other child got their 18th Gift prior to the death, so I didn't consider it a genuine inheritance from the Will, just their matching 18th Gift that had been saved for them.

I'm still happy to be in touch with my child's cousin, and have always encouraged my child's relationship with their aunt, but I'm done with her now.

They've clearly been plotting disinheriting my child since they were in primary school, and I feel like a fool putting up with their nasty behaviour towards me in order to preserve my child's link to their father and "future inheritance".

(Sorry for the essay, it was cathartic getting it out!)

Assuming the executor is acting in good faith, the situation could be

• Ds is not a beneficiary under the last valid will
• Ds is a beneficiary of the will, there is something coming but the executor hasn’t been great on communication
• Ds is a beneficiary BUT due to little money being left there won’t be anything for him to get.

"Assuming the executor is acting in good faith" is a big assumption.

Ah OP, I'm sorry. I'm in an (uncannily) similar position, only DD is still small and I'm still on (what I thought were) good terms with late DH's family. I was devastated when I found out – not least because I was with DFIL when he died, and genuinely believed that I was as close to him as I was when DH was alive. It's been 6 months or so now and I'm a bit more sanguine about it, but it has definitely changed how I feel about my position in the family.

Tbh I could probably understand cutting me out, but essentially cutting DD out (she has been left a token amount in trust, but nothing compared to what the other grandchildren will eventually inherit) broke me a bit. DH would have been absolutely gutted, too, which makes me sad. But I don't feel able to say anything because DD having an ongoing relationship with SIL etc is more important.

It's very hard. Feels like an additional loss, which I think compounds everything. Hope you feel better with time.

Maybe I have missed this information, but how do you know for certain that nothing was left to either your or your son, did someone inform you of this or are you just assuming?

Will trusts can be complex, or they can be simple. Sometimes they are Discretionary Trusts and then it is up to the trustees to decide to appoint anything to an object (beneficiary).

If I were you, and in due course - if you are in contact and ok with anyone in the in law family, I would ask. Nothing to lose is there since either way you will probably never see them again anyway.

That is terrible.