Probate - Executor of Will

[somapop]

I wondered what you were a trustee for.
Presumably you will have to manage the investment of the grandchildren’s monies until they are 18.

Yeah, kind of trustee (the solicitor, who's firm this is and was a friend of my mother's over the years) are listed as both executors and trustees.

I've spoken to one of the solicitors dealing with this during my lunch.

Bizarrely the reason I couldn't work the distribution out last night was because it's been drafted up incorrectly.
50% share between myself (and my children) and 50% to my sister, her children and grandchildren.
Most of this 2nd share/50% of the estate was distributed as amounts, where as two of my sisters kids were listed as 25% each of the remainder (from the amounts taken out of that second share).

This left a remainder with nothing pointing towards where this should go.

The solicitor firmly believes this should have read as 50% each from that remainder. It doesn't say that, but this is what it means (and would seem right in a true 50 50 split). I could contest this (interpreting it from the way it's been written) but that would be a rather expensive, drawn out process.

The solicitor is going to double check through previous Will iterations and get back to me.

With regard to the trust of the grandchildren's monies, I'm going to ask their mother (via my cousin as I've no wish to be in contact with them) to set up a trust fund for them so I'm not holding onto that for them.

Complex and messy but I feel all this is just about complete and I'll finally have that closure. It's been detriemental to my health over the past few months.

Thanks for all the tips and help.

 

[BlueAnorak]

Doing this myself at the moment - it's a pain in the neck.
Bottom line - do it yourself or pay 2.5 - 7.5% of the estate to solicitors.
Best option if the estate is fairly simple is to determine the size of the estate yourself and if the residual estate is less than £20k do it yourself if more than that pay a smallish fee up to £500-£1000 to a solicitor to check your workings and deal with the Gov probate service.
Get all the account information, property valuations etc (use services to find a person's accounts if paperwork is a mess). Make debtor payments (funeral payments, pension over payments and other debts) from accounts
- especially use bonds and ISA's here - below £20k - there will be no penalty on the account funds/interest for using account money in this way - at which point accounts under £20k are handed over to the executor(s) rather than waiting on probate to complete which can take for ever in complicated cases.

 

[somapop]

Doing this myself at the moment - it's a pain in the neck.
Bottom line - do it yourself or pay 2.5 - 7.5% of the estate to solicitors.
Best option if the estate is fairly simple is to determine the size of the estate yourself and if the residual estate is less than £20k do it yourself if more than that pay a smallish fee up to £500-£1000 to a solicitor to check your workings and deal with the Gov probate service.
Get all the account information, property valuations etc (use services to find a person's accounts if paperwork is a mess). Make debtor payments (funeral payments, pension over payments and other debts) from accounts
- especially use bonds and ISA's here - below £20k - there will be no penalty on the account funds/interest for using account money in this way - at which point accounts under £20k are handed over to the executor(s) rather than waiting on probate to complete which can take for ever in complicated cases.

You did the probate you mean?
I paid a bit for the solicitors do that but I feel it' was worth it in these circumstances.
Took a lot of the strain out.

I've done the rest to be fair (closed accounts, pensions, bills etc - quite messy but the Gov Tell Us Once service is helpful for some of this).

I just now need to distribute and that should be the closure I could with so I can move on again.

 

[BlueAnorak]

You did the probate you mean?
I paid a bit for the solicitors do that but I feel it' was worth it in these circumstances.
Took a lot of the strain out.

I've done the rest to be fair (closed accounts, pensions, bills etc - quite messy but the Gov Tell Us Once service is helpful for some of this).

I just now need to distribute and that should be the closure I could with so I can move on again.

No doing - pre probate work won't be completed for a few weeks yet. Then throwing the actual probate completion over to a soliciter - too easy to make a mistake if you do it yourself.

The rest is correct.

Tell Us once, Death Notification Service (to which many banks and other finance orgs are signed up to) & Find my account all help.

Think I have found all the accounts and paying funeral costs and debts from accounts to bring them under £20K is a huge help as organisations take forever to realease money.if probate is required (amd it is for any account above £20k)

Making sure your will is held by a solicitor with the executors names in the will is a great help unlocking access to some organisation accounts by getting a certified copy of a will.

 

[Lowtower]

My aunt died Feb 23, leaving a fair bit a money (around 850k)

Her will was changed 2 days before she died, putting the money into a discretional trust with the trustees being my father and sister (50/50) with me named as a potential beneficiary of this trust, I didn't expect a penny and was shocked when I received a phone call from my sister saying the will said I was getting 5k as my aunt had grandkids and kids of her own who were now getting nowt.

I questioned why it was changed so late as they are sly as fuck at the best of times so had my suspicions , got a load of waffle, so checked the will when it went to probate, no mention of 5k to me at all, so again questioned them, they ignore me now, and I never received a penny from it, nor has anyone else, my solicitor reckons the 5k offer to me was go away money hoping I'd not bother looking into it.

Been cast out of the family since November last year for asking questions.

People and money eh?!

 

[blue b4 the moon]

My aunt died Feb 23, leaving a fair bit a money (around 850k)

Her will was changed 2 days before she died, putting the money into a discretional trust with the trustees being my father and sister (50/50) with me named as a potential beneficiary of this trust, I didn't expect a penny and was shocked when I received a phone call from my sister saying the will said I was getting 5k as my aunt had grandkids and kids of her own who were now getting nowt.

I questioned why it was changed so late as they are sly as fuck at the best of times so had my suspicions , got a load of waffle, so checked the will when it went to probate, no mention of 5k to me at all, so again questioned them, they ignore me now, and I never received a penny from it, nor has anyone else, my solicitor reckons the 5k offer to me was go away money hoping I'd not bother looking into it.

Been cast out of the family since November last year for asking questions.

People and money eh?!

Families and money are cunts mate, I'm pretty sure I have a post earlier in this thread on the subject.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

My aunt died Feb 23, leaving a fair bit a money (around 850k)

Her will was changed 2 days before she died, putting the money into a discretional trust with the trustees being my father and sister (50/50) with me named as a potential beneficiary of this trust, I didn't expect a penny and was shocked when I received a phone call from my sister saying the will said I was getting 5k as my aunt had grandkids and kids of her own who were now getting nowt.

I questioned why it was changed so late as they are sly as fuck at the best of times so had my suspicions , got a load of waffle, so checked the will when it went to probate, no mention of 5k to me at all, so again questioned them, they ignore me now, and I never received a penny from it, nor has anyone else, my solicitor reckons the 5k offer to me was go away money hoping I'd not bother looking into it.

Been cast out of the family since November last year for asking questions.

People and money eh?!

You can get a copy of the will from Somerset House.

 

[somapop]

Yeah, kind of trustee (the solicitor, who's firm this is and was a friend of my mother's over the years) are listed as both executors and trustees.

I've spoken to one of the solicitors dealing with this during my lunch.

Bizarrely the reason I couldn't work the distribution out last night was because it's been drafted up incorrectly.
50% share between myself (and my children) and 50% to my sister, her children and grandchildren.
Most of this 2nd share/50% of the estate was distributed as amounts, where as two of my sisters kids were listed as 25% each of the remainder (from the amounts taken out of that second share).

This left a remainder with nothing pointing towards where this should go.

The solicitor firmly believes this should have read as 50% each from that remainder. It doesn't say that, but this is what it means (and would seem right in a true 50 50 split). I could contest this (interpreting it from the way it's been written) but that would be a rather expensive, drawn out process.

The solicitor is going to double check through previous Will iterations and get back to me.

With regard to the trust of the grandchildren's monies, I'm going to ask their mother (via my cousin as I've no wish to be in contact with them) to set up a trust fund for them so I'm not holding onto that for them.

Complex and messy but I feel all this is just about complete and I'll finally have that closure. It's been detriemental to my health over the past few months.

Thanks for all the tips and help.

The Solicitor was going to check through a previous will and look at this 25% (x2) split.

I find it odd that a legal document can just be interpreted ?
I spoked to my cousin about this (who was very close to my mother, lived near to her and also my sister/her kids).
She's always been suspicious that the will was changed in 2018 which is when my mother first started falling into dementia.
My mother always stated she wouldn't be giving anything to my sister (as mentioned before, she fleeced he for years, for drug money, bills paid everything, Emptying her building society accounts. Difficult to get lower than her. As we were adopted, I'm just glad we aren't blood related).

Yet in 2018 the will seems to swing a bit her way (in some ways - she's on benefits so wasn't entitled to a large sum 0 yet her children where - two have £35k coming their way, my kids have just £1k each).

But for me to question this would mean the solicitors inadvertently let this happen, and if that were the case, that's some battle for me to go through (financially and mentally).

I'll presume as the executor and trustees I'm within my rights to ask for previous will version/iterations?

I'm finding all this is making me feel a bit ill. I've not paid out yet until I hear back from the solicitor (she was looking into previous wills: however she hasn't been in touch since the other week so I'll have to chase).
I'm not being greedy by the way, but this lot don't deserve a penny.

It's horrible all this. The death, the emotions and dealing with family members that are as low as they come.

 

[denislawsbackheel]

Even if there was a previous will drawn up by the current solicitor there is no requirement for them to have kept a copy once the current one was drawn up and bear in mind the Oath for Executors requires them to swear that the relevant Will is valid. If the executors don't believe that this most recent Will is valid due to duress/undue influence being exerted on the deceased, they should not swear that it is.

 

[somapop]

Even if there was a previous will drawn up by the current solicitor there is no requirement for them to have kept a copy once the current one was drawn up and bear in mind the Oath for Executors requires them to swear that the relevant Will is valid. If the executors don't believe that this most recent Will is valid due to duress/undue influence being exerted on the deceased, they should not swear that it is.

One of the executors & trustees (alongside myself) was the main solicitor (who's firm it is and was a life long friend of my mothers).
I wasn't around when this was drawn up back in 2018 (as in I lived a long way from my childhood home, and was also in the midst of an awful few years personally).

It's probably a mix of stress and emotions colliding with other things going on atm (and my cousin casting doubt upon this - and not without reason btw).

It's not like I've been booted out the will, I'm just very curious as to what was left in this new draft and the timing of a of the will being drawn up ni 2018 when my mother first began showing signs of dementia.

Might just be the right thing to do and pay off as it stands with that 25% mention actually meaning 50% each (of what was left of their half of the will) and move on. My sleeps awful enough as it is.