Death without a will - property / partner questions
Discussion
Folks
A very good friend of mine is in what appears to be a bit of a mess.
Essentially, his long terms partner died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t leave a will. The property they lived was in his partner’s name, and now his partner’s family are basically chucking him out the house – or at least trying to. They’ve given him 6 weeks to leave.
Anyone with any experience in this willing to offer an opinion as to what his options are?
A very good friend of mine is in what appears to be a bit of a mess.
Essentially, his long terms partner died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t leave a will. The property they lived was in his partner’s name, and now his partner’s family are basically chucking him out the house – or at least trying to. They’ve given him 6 weeks to leave.
Anyone with any experience in this willing to offer an opinion as to what his options are?
TheJimi said:
Folks
A very good friend of mine is in what appears to be a bit of a mess.
Essentially, his long terms partner died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t leave a will. The property they lived was in his partner’s name, and now his partner’s family are basically chucking him out the house – or at least trying to. They’ve given him 6 weeks to leave.
Anyone with any experience in this willing to offer an opinion as to what his options are?
He really needs to lawyer up and definitely not move out. A very good friend of mine is in what appears to be a bit of a mess.
Essentially, his long terms partner died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t leave a will. The property they lived was in his partner’s name, and now his partner’s family are basically chucking him out the house – or at least trying to. They’ve given him 6 weeks to leave.
Anyone with any experience in this willing to offer an opinion as to what his options are?
So many variables in a situation like this.
Had they been together a long time?
TheJimi said:
They've been together 9 years, and lived together 4 years.
Edit: He's intending on seeing a family lawyer, who will be apparently charging £260+vat per hour. Is that the going rate?!
Depends where they are in the country but it doesn't sounds way out of kilter.Edit: He's intending on seeing a family lawyer, who will be apparently charging £260+vat per hour. Is that the going rate?!
As I said there are so many variables it's difficult to give any advice but, on the face of it, it doesn't seem reasonable to turf someone out of their home of 4 years with 6 weeks notice.
TheJimi said:
Folks
A very good friend of mine is in what appears to be a bit of a mess.
Essentially, his long terms partner died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t leave a will. The property they lived was in his partner’s name, and now his partner’s family are basically chucking him out the house – or at least trying to. They’ve given him 6 weeks to leave.
Anyone with any experience in this willing to offer an opinion as to what his options are?
How old are the two people?A very good friend of mine is in what appears to be a bit of a mess.
Essentially, his long terms partner died suddenly a couple of weeks ago, and didn’t leave a will. The property they lived was in his partner’s name, and now his partner’s family are basically chucking him out the house – or at least trying to. They’ve given him 6 weeks to leave.
Anyone with any experience in this willing to offer an opinion as to what his options are?
We had this with mother in law and her partner passed away. Together 10 years, not married and never engaged.
His family claimed she was the cleaner. She stayed in the house and we sorted her a lawyer and it went to mediation. His extended family arrived and after 5 hours mediation she got 50% of the sale of the property and they got to pay costs. So they got less than half for being greedy.
May end up differently for them but that's our experience anyway.
His family claimed she was the cleaner. She stayed in the house and we sorted her a lawyer and it went to mediation. His extended family arrived and after 5 hours mediation she got 50% of the sale of the property and they got to pay costs. So they got less than half for being greedy.
May end up differently for them but that's our experience anyway.
BlueHave said:
Unless they have clear evidence they paid have the mortgage then it will go to the next of kin.
It's not that black and white. Contributing to mortgage payments is one way that a common intention to share ownership can be established (a common intention trust) but not the only one. He's doing absolutely the right thing by taking proper advice. He may or may not have a claim to the property but it's a complex area which can't be answered on the back of a fag packet.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
No, the best route is to go to somebody who knows what they are doing and pay for it. Your suggestion is the cheapest route 
Worth looking into Will Aid, though - that's a good compromise. The idea is that you get a will prepared properly in return for a donation to the charity (recommended donation level about £100 I think)
bladebloke said:
No, the best route is to go to somebody who knows what they are doing and pay for it. Your suggestion is the cheapest route
Worth looking into Will Aid, though - that's a good compromise. The idea is that you get a will prepared properly in return for a donation to the charity (recommended donation level about £100 I think)
Thanks for that post, I'd not heard of Will Aid so I've just registered to be notified of my local participating solicitors.Worth looking into Will Aid, though - that's a good compromise. The idea is that you get a will prepared properly in return for a donation to the charity (recommended donation level about £100 I think)
The simple answer is that it definitely isn't his house.
https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-w...
As has been said, there might be a claim against a portion of the equity in it - and that'd need to go legal, if nothing can be agreed amicably with the family. I guess that there was no relationship with them, even before the sniff of a bequest got their baser instincts twitching...
https://www.gov.uk/inherits-someone-dies-without-w...
As has been said, there might be a claim against a portion of the equity in it - and that'd need to go legal, if nothing can be agreed amicably with the family. I guess that there was no relationship with them, even before the sniff of a bequest got their baser instincts twitching...
anonymous said:
[redacted]
We did ours, but if you have kids it's not as simple as you think.You need to cover what happens if you both die and the kids survive, what happens if you all die (say a plane crash).
If your kids are young who is going to look after them and how is that going to be financed etc.
98elise said:
anonymous said:
[redacted]
We did ours, but if you have kids it's not as simple as you think.You need to cover what happens if you both die and the kids survive, what happens if you all die (say a plane crash).
If your kids are young who is going to look after them and how is that going to be financed etc.
I do wonder when people try to save a few hundred quid on writing a will, why they don't see that one-off payment as a massive insurance policy against it being cocked up. They're simple to do yourself, but also very easy to do wrong (or at least with unintended consequence) - and hey, it's only looking after everything you own, plus your family.
tigger1 said:
Don't forget that you need to allow for the scenario of you getting married too, and having more kids etc.
I do wonder when people try to save a few hundred quid on writing a will, why they don't see that one-off payment as a massive insurance policy against it being cocked up. They're simple to do yourself, but also very easy to do wrong (or at least with unintended consequence) - and hey, it's only looking after everything you own, plus your family.
Even simple ones can be cocked up with language that can be ambiguous. My will is very simple, just Mrs G (we're not married) and my parents sharing my ill-gotten gains, but even then I'm using a solicitor. In this case using Will Aid as mentioned above. I do wonder when people try to save a few hundred quid on writing a will, why they don't see that one-off payment as a massive insurance policy against it being cocked up. They're simple to do yourself, but also very easy to do wrong (or at least with unintended consequence) - and hey, it's only looking after everything you own, plus your family.
As said do get a solicitor to draw up a will rather than do yourself. I would also add
DO NOT ADD THE SOLICITOR AS AN EXECUTOR OF THE WILL,
Being an executor is relatively easy but recently the law society has allowed their solicitors to change their charging structure when acting on probate, and now they are allowed to not only charge for their time, but also take a percentage of the estate on top. If you make them an executor it's almost impossible to change solicitors to one that just charges a flat fee. These on top charges can be upto 5-6% of the total estate on top of the typical £2k fixed fee.
In my view this is criminal, but I have seen two cases at separate lawyers in the last year that have been caught out when the deceased thought they had done their wills cheaply and been trapped by solicitors slicing their estate at time of death.
DO NOT ADD THE SOLICITOR AS AN EXECUTOR OF THE WILL,
Being an executor is relatively easy but recently the law society has allowed their solicitors to change their charging structure when acting on probate, and now they are allowed to not only charge for their time, but also take a percentage of the estate on top. If you make them an executor it's almost impossible to change solicitors to one that just charges a flat fee. These on top charges can be upto 5-6% of the total estate on top of the typical £2k fixed fee.
In my view this is criminal, but I have seen two cases at separate lawyers in the last year that have been caught out when the deceased thought they had done their wills cheaply and been trapped by solicitors slicing their estate at time of death.
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