Inheritance question.....
Discussion
TTmonkey said:
Mystery over. The 94 year old wrote a new will dated a couple of months before her death leaving everything to surviving daughter.
Grand daughters got nothing.
Amazing, could barely recognise herself in the mirror but was sharp enough to think about a new will...... ha.
Was this new will written prior to your MiL's death or after? Grand daughters got nothing.
Amazing, could barely recognise herself in the mirror but was sharp enough to think about a new will...... ha.
Seems bonkers that your MiL looked after her mother and by way of thanks she gets written out of the will! Who looked after her after your MiL's death and prior to her death, the other daughter?
boyse7en said:
I'm going to go against the tide here and say that, given the situation, I'd be more inclined to let it lie.
It may seem unfair, but the challenging the will will be a long, drawn out, stressful and expensive process - and there is a very good chance that you will get nothing at the end and just destroy any relationship between you/your wife and her aunt/cousins/etc for ever and leave yourself with £thousands in solicitors bills to pay.
You may not approve of your aunt-in-law's lifestyle, but it seems that her mother didn't see any problem with it.
I agree with this.It may seem unfair, but the challenging the will will be a long, drawn out, stressful and expensive process - and there is a very good chance that you will get nothing at the end and just destroy any relationship between you/your wife and her aunt/cousins/etc for ever and leave yourself with £thousands in solicitors bills to pay.
You may not approve of your aunt-in-law's lifestyle, but it seems that her mother didn't see any problem with it.
People seem to get obsessed with the "right" to an inheritence, to the point where they destroy relationships with other relatives. I'm not saying this is the case here, but on a fundamental level your life would be unchanged had your wife's grandmother either not had these assets to sell, or had gifted them away to charity, or whatever.
It only stings because at some point in time your wife looked to be in line for some money, and she knew about it. If she (and you) had been oblivious then your life would be unchanged, indeed if anything there would be less fretting over it.
My late Father went through a similar thing (much smaller sums involved), he looked after his Mum's garden and bought her shopping for years, completely altruistically and without any expectation of anything back other than love, whilst his estranged brother never visited nor lifted a finger to help. When the will was read my father and another brother got next to nothing, and the aforementioned brother got her house and pretty much everything in it. There was suspicion - as in this case - that the will was changed under duress, but ultimately nothing could be proven. All that ended up happening is that an already sour relationship was destroyed, and my Father and brother (the good one) were left with a diminished opinion of their departed Mum.
Unless you fancy a long, expensive and ultimately unlikely road of legal challenges ahead, then I'd do your best to forget about it and counsel your wife to do the same. I'd like to say that karma would come around on Barbara but that's a crock of s
t too.EDIT: Re-read and realised you'd decided not to contest. The right decision I feel.
Edited by Durzel on Thursday 17th January 13:14
rsbmw said:
If she was not of sound mind, it's possible she was coerced into that by the surviving daughter. Worth a challenge.
You're conflating two issues there.You can challenge a will on the basis that the testator didn't have the capacity to properly understand what they were doing. That's (largely) a medical question determined by expert evidence.
You can challenge a will on the basis of undue influence, and that the will of the testator was so overborne as to mean that the will doesn't represent what they wanted to do with their estate. That sort of claim is exceptionally hard to prove.
"Worth a challenge" also overlooks the fact that it would commit the OP's wife to a very significant cost, and also the risk of having to pay the estate's costs if the challenge was unsuccessful.
boyse7en said:
Grandma may have been 94 but she can still be rational and perfectly in charge of her mental faculties
This is so true, my mother was 94 when she passed away (ref the will I executed, mentioned earlier in the thread) and she was using her PC to do online shopping to the day she died, even opening a basket with Ocado and Sainsbury's to see which was the best or had the stuff she wanted before clicking on 'order'. She had my niece & husband for dinner on the Saturday, passed away on Monday. Fortunately there was no st with her will! 
. TTmonkey said:
Amazing, could barely recognise herself in the mirror but was sharp enough to think about a new will...... ha.
If your grandmother lacked the capacity to so much as recognise herself in the mirror when she rewrote her will (I recognise the element of sarcasm there), was she suffering from a diagnosed dementia and did she require someone else to exercise power of attorney on her behalf? Changing the will a few weeks before her death raises the possibility that she (or someone hoping to gain from her estate) knew she had a time-limited terminal medical condition and therefore it needed to be done as soon as possible. That or she was just bloody minded and decided to have a strop and died before she could change it back again.There are high street solicitors and those who specialize in probate, often these will have a specialist qualification, Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners membership (STEP) and will know far more about the subject than the average high street solicitor.
Sympathies for a difficult and painful family situation. Contesting a will is difficult as you have to prove the act, and therefore is high risk and hugely costly if you lose. Life can be brutal at times and people can make surprising and upsetting decisions in their wills from which it may well be best to move on.
Breadvan72 said:
Why does anyone consider that the mere accident of birth entitles them to anything?
Ask the Queen.Edited by Breadvan72 on Thursday 17th January 11:56
OP, was the new will done in a solicitor's office or a 'home-made' job? If the latter it may be worth contesting, if the former it's probably a lost cause as the solicitor will have made his own opinion of her mental state and any coercive pressure from the new beneficiary, and would not write a will for a person who wasn't compus mentis.
Were there any medical diagnoses of your mother's mental state prior to the date of the new will?
konark said:
OP, was the new will done in a solicitor's office or a 'home-made' job? If the latter it may be worth contesting, if the former it's probably a lost cause as the solicitor will have made his own opinion of her mental state and any coercive pressure from the new beneficiary, and would not write a will for a person who wasn't compus mentis.
Were there any medical diagnoses of your mother's mental state prior to the date of the new will?
Quite. A solicitor (if one was involved in the process) would, whatever his/her personal opinion was, have been wise to consider the 'Golden Rule' mentioned by a previous poster.Were there any medical diagnoses of your mother's mental state prior to the date of the new will?
I wouldn't expect a medical practitioner to provide professional advice on a legal matter. Nor vice-versa.
Further to my previous post: a very interesting commentary on the 'Golden Rule' - https://www.magdalenchambers.co.uk/the-golden-rule...
For those who like reading reports of cases, there is plenty of choice from which to start searching.
For those who like reading reports of cases, there is plenty of choice from which to start searching.
Breadvan72 said:
Why does anyone consider that the mere accident of birth entitles them to anything? Also, if you want to be paid for caring for someone, train as a medic or carer. My brother and I look after our old mum. We do not do so in the hope of reward after her death.
Come on, BV. You're better than that. Everyone else who doesn't feel the way you do could just as easily question your attitude. A waste of time and energy all round, really.Edited by Breadvan72 on Thursday 17th January 11:56
Red Devil said:
Further to my previous post: a very interesting commentary on the 'Golden Rule' - https://www.magdalenchambers.co.uk/the-golden-rule...
For those who like reading reports of cases, there is plenty of choice from which to start searching.
It really doesn't cost anything at all to find out the circumstances of the Will drafting (Golden Rule being followed) by making a Larke v Nugus request and also obtaining the Will file.For those who like reading reports of cases, there is plenty of choice from which to start searching.
I take others points about not challenging and no automatic rights to inherit but IMO this is only true if the Will represents the old ladies true wishes, not that of others and she fully knew and understood what she was doing, had the mental capacity to do it and proper procedures were followed......IIRC the OP stated she wouldn't recognise herself in the mirror
IANAL like our learned friends on here but as for costs - I do believe that costs do not necessarily automatically follow the event either way (win or Lose) as long as there are genuine, valid grounds to challenge a Will. There are also a lot of hurdles to jump (mediation etc) before it goes to Court and I believe very few challenges actually end up reaching Court and are settled beforehand.
If was is in the OP shoes I would at least make some initial enquiries........he doesn't even need a solicitor to make a L & N request to the drafting solicitor.
http://www.gedye.co.uk/articles/up-with-the-larke/
Pothole said:
Breadvan72 said:
Why does anyone consider that the mere accident of birth entitles them to anything? Also, if you want to be paid for caring for someone, train as a medic or carer. My brother and I look after our old mum. We do not do so in the hope of reward after her death.
Come on, BV. You're better than that. Everyone else who doesn't feel the way you do could just as easily question your attitude. A waste of time and energy all round, really.Edited by Breadvan72 on Thursday 17th January 11:56
She hadn't told her daughter that the NHS had suspected that she had heart disease.
I miss her immensely, and she's my mother-in-law. Which I think tells you what a great person she was. I knew her 35 years and never had a single falling out with her.
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