Message from God, hijacked!

[w00hoo_kent]

How? As i understand it, if you die intestate, your estate goes to your spouse, if no spouse, it goes to your children, no kids, then your parents, no parents, then siblings, no siblings, they start looking at cousins, nephews, nieces...

Say you're mother was cohabiting with an abusive partner and with no Will he feels that he should have the house because he has been contributing to it and is on the mortgage? What if your sister then chips in that she also deserves some of the estate, oh, and there's a car that the partners niece has her eye on, and he is still living in the house with access to all of its stuff. While you're at it, you suspect the partner didn't pay for any of the white goods in the house.

My solicitor said "the worst thing you can do is get this in to a court, we are the only people who win there." he knew of people who'd spent their whole inheritance contesting who would get the inheritance.

Fortunately in my case we came to agreements, but it wasn't without compromises and I was in no state to be having to deal with all the shoot. A Will would have made everything obvious. Even stupid things, I can't believe my mother really wanted "once twice a lady" played at her funeral for instance, but life's too short (63 years in this case) to argue.

I hope this is all needless talk in Edna's case. But she should have a Will, everyone ought to.

 

[byegad]

How? As i understand it, if you die intestate, your estate goes to your spouse, if no spouse, it goes to your children, no kids, then your parents, no parents, then siblings, no siblings, they start looking at cousins, nephews, nieces...

That's the point, start looking. It holds everything up and is open to higher charges from solicitors and HMRC are likely to chip in their 2 penn'orth if the estate is a reasonable size. It's common sense to make things easy for your nearest and dearest after you go.

 

[Hover Fly]

The other point about a will is that even if everything obviously goes to one person without doubt, it makes it easier to deal with bank accounts, pensions etc.

 

[Milkfloat]

My father died without leaving a will (he claimed he had one, but it was never found). The division was fairly simple, surviving spouse and two sons, but the lack of will slowed everything down and made it far more painful. In addition to all that we found out that it is perfectly legal for his pension provider to ignore his expression of wishes and divide his pension up how they saw fit - that caused some commotion including my mother making the Sunday Times..

They don't half make dying difficult!

 

[MontyVeda]

Say you're mother was cohabiting with an abusive partner and with no Will he feels that he should have the house because he has been contributing to it and is on the mortgage? What if your sister then chips in that she also deserves some of the estate, oh, and there's a car that the partners niece has her eye on, and he is still living in the house with access to all of its stuff. While you're at it, you suspect the partner didn't pay for any of the white goods in the house.

My solicitor said "the worst thing you can do is get this in to a court, we are the only people who win there." he knew of people who'd spent their whole inheritance contesting who would get the inheritance.

Fortunately in my case we came to agreements, but it wasn't without compromises and I was in no state to be having to deal with all the shoot. A Will would have made everything obvious. Even stupid things, I can't believe my mother really wanted "once twice a lady" played at her funeral for instance, but life's too short (63 years in this case) to argue.

I hope this is all needless talk in Edna's case. But she should have a Will, everyone ought to.

Here's another scenario.. but this one isn't 'pie in the sky'... my mother lives with my father and neither of them have a will. If Dad dies, Mum gets what's his. If Mum dies, Dad gets what's hers. When the other dies, the estate will be divided between their children.

 

[w00hoo_kent]

Great, no Will just slows everything down and I presume you have a perfect relationship with your siblings and all have the same number of children.

This wouldn't have worked for my wife, just like the scenario above (which is less 'pie in the sky' than I'd like thanks) didn't work for me.

I hope nobody in your vicinity has complications from not having a Will. Speaking as someone who has suffered complications, I'm a strong advocate of bothering. It's not like you can't do it for pretty much free if you try.

 

[MacB]

Here's another scenario.. but this one isn't 'pie in the sky'... my mother lives with my father and neither of them have a will. If Dad dies, Mum gets what's his. If Mum dies, Dad gets what's hers. When the other dies, the estate will be divided between their children.

Even then a will is convenient, it doesn't have to cost anything to do either. My Mum had written her own and had two friends witness it. This was in a file labelled for me along with important documentation I would need and a covering letter detailing her funeral wishes and some other things she wanted me to do.

Then the government also offer a one stop service when you go to register the death which saves having to contact any other government departments regarding the death....you even get a dated receipt to prove you have made the correct notifications.

I had probate granted in about 10 days and everything tied up inside a month - you may differ but I found the lack of hassle in this area a big relief at the time.

 

[swee'pea99]

What's wrong with preparing yourself for death? Mortality is part of life.

Nothing, obviously. But as Saluki says:

I agree that death is part of life, so to speak, but there is no point in causing upset to a frail lady who is probably in a lot of pain.

It's true that broken hips can mean curtains for the old and frail, and Edna's both, but she's had an operation, seems pretty chipper in the circumstances, and is already thinking in terms of going home. We have fingers crossed. What else can you do?

Oh, and her bitch of a sister in law has been sniffing around and making a big show of 'showing her concern' (having not seen Edna since Christmas - and that only because her hubby's Edna's brother, of course), including (so thoughtfully) finding 'a lovely care home' just by where she lives (meaning several hundred miles from all Edna's many friends and neighbours). She's clearly hoping that Edna will croak after she's had a chance to get in there and make a her bid for a chunk of Edna's highly valuable, and wholly-owned, house, along with the contents of her pretty well stocked bank account. What she doesn't know - and we do - is that Edna knows her for the poisonous cow she is, and has made a pointed point of ensuring that when her will is read, SinL is going to be mightily disappointed. Hah!

 

[fossyant]

It's a bloody nightmare even if there is a will. Trying to also protect the spouse left as well. We had to change all the bills, get power of attorney for MIL and it all goes on. As for leaving stuff, one sibling got a £30k car, the other a laptop and the other nothing.

 

[ayceejay]

Old people fall for a variety of reasons, they can break a hip. In my experience it is the. usually undetected, problem that caused the fall that does the damage.
I knew some old people who lived frugally in a little cottage in the country, they didn't drive and often walked into town for their shopping. There were people who helped them on a regular basis with chores they couldn't handle. She was almost 90 and he was 70 bit frail. he left his estate to her and she left hers to him. She had nothing but when he died first we discovered that he was worth a small fortune, she didn't take his death well and died two weeks later without altering her will. There were no known relatives so an ad went in The Times, to cut a long story short a solicitor turned up with a claim that was recognized and he copped the lot.

 

[Fnaar]

I'm gonna leave all my debts to a cats' home.

 

[welsh dragon]

Mr WD left his half to me. Now all I have to do is collect it.

 

[TheDoctor]

Need an alibi? Or need a hand?

 

[Fnaar]

Miss Goodbody has first dibs on the Vicar's altar candles.

 

[ColinJ]

My sister remarried and they both had kids by previous marriages. She pointed out to me the possible problems of her and her new husband not writing wills. Both parents wanted the other spouse to get 50% and their children the other 50% in the event of their death. She put forward the scenario of her and her husband being in a serious road accident, her dying of her injuries first, and him some time later. Legally, she reckoned that without wills stating their wishes he would inherit her estate, and shortly afterwards it would pass to his son, with her children being cut out altogether.

I'm not sure if that is true, but it sounded plausible.