Where there is a will, there'sa relative in the woodwork.

I was responding to Ana's post of 19.14pm, abbey.

Oh , sorry soontobe.

I thought you had to get probate, if there is a will, and some other kind of legal authorisation, the name of which I forget, if there isn't one, before you can touch the money in a dead person's bank account. The money can be accessed via the deceased's bank card if the bank hasn't been notified of the death, but this is a criminal offence.

Letters of Administration, absent. But abbey obviously knows better.

Thanks Ana, I thought it was Letters of something or other but I have only ever dealt with the estates of people who had written wills.

Sadly I have recently had to deal with the estate of a relative who died without leaving a will, so I have first-hand knowledge of the procedure (as it is in England and Wales, at least).

My father died 11 years ago today, and my mother three months later. Neither of them left a will, but the money they had was shared out by the bank almost straight away between their four children because there was so little of it. Most of their money went on their funerals/cremation.

My father's cousin died intestate and I was a direct beneficiary but it took three years to sort it all out. The solicitors trousered £800K.

My dad died intestate and he was a lawyer luckily my brother was too so he sorted it all out. DH & I have made wills to avoid the chaos it can cause if not done.

Abbey I am sure if you & DH pay a solicitor to draw up a will explaining your reasons for leaving you property/money to whoever you want it is not likely to be contested and you get the outcome you want. Don't make a will and your relatives will certainly benefit!

Merlot- did you really mean £800,000?

I certainly did, GrannyTwice. Dad's cousin had a common law wife who contested the fact that she hadn't been left anything. She was terminally ill so the solicitors on both sides had a field day going back and forth to court until she died. Her care needs were paid for out of the estate and we think that's what the deceased expected to happen because he hated her son and didn't want him to inherit anything. None of the beneficiaries objected to the care needs being met out of a considerable estate but the solicitors on both sides spotted a Kerrrrrching opportunity - hence the £800K

Greedy b*****ds

I'm staggered

I am not going to comment on Abbeys angry account of her experiences, but I will tell you what happened when my uncle died intestate.

His sister was given the death certificate and registered the death. His bank accounts were frozen and could only be accessed once the appropriate legalities had been gone through. His sister contacted a lawyer to do this.

He was one of a family of four, with no children. Only one sister remained. Another sister had two children, a brother had three. Once the house had been sold, the money from it and his bank accounts was divided into three - one third for each of his siblings or the families of each of those who had died.

His sister received a third.
The two children of his other sister received a sixth each - half each of their deceased mother's share.
The three children of his brother received a ninth each - one-third each of their deceased mother's share.

The lawyer made a charge for his services. As the names and addresses of everyone could be given to the lawyer at once, there was no need to search for relations, but a search could have been made if necessary, with more expense to come off the legacies. If a search does not reveal any relatives, then the state gets the money - if there is any left by then!

It is always better to make a will that states what you want to happen to your estate when you are gone, rather than have the expense of working it all out and finding heirs. If there is a lot of work no-one will get anything. Challenging the will only succeeds if there is a good reason for not carrying it out - for instance if the writer can be shown to be incapable of making a decision, or has been under duress.

I ought to have made a will before I go for my heart operation, but I've kept putting it off because although I know who I don't want it to go to, I don't know who I do want it to got to. Bit late now.

My father left everything to me, with instructions who else he wanted some to go to, and I've had snipes about money from the rest of the family for the last 27 years. It would have been better if he had made his will out the way he wanted instead of leaving me to do it. I think there was some unpleasantness the same year about my grandma's will too, but I didn't get involved in that.

"Whats wrong with you? I tell a true story and I have to be treated like a troll is that it?"

There isn't the same stigma attached to being a cynic as there is to being a gull, and if you have something to say that people don't want to hear, there's denial too.

Anyone got any good recommendations for charities?

Leave money to one/some of the smaller charities. It will have proportionately more impact than to one of the bigger better-known ones. Before committing yourself, take a look at the accounts and reports of the charity/ies of your choice to see how much actually gets used for the purpose intended and how much goes to the top executives.

Anything but donkeys - apparently they are rolling in it.

My aunt was my grandfather's carer. She had a stroke and ended up in hospital. Her son arranged for a qualified nurse to care for our grandfather until my aunt was fully recovered. During the nine months that she cared for him, he bought her and her two daughters a diamond necklace each and left her half of his estate. There was also a 'burglary' during which all the solid silver and gold items went, but little damage done to anything and the police couldn't work out how anyone got in.... No insurance. He also appointed her husband to be his executor.

The husband brought in a solicitor friend to help my grandfather to make his will. In it there was a clause stating that if any member of the family tried to contest the will, they would forfeit their inheritance.

I tried several times during that nine months to visit my grandfather, but was always fobbed off with 'he's not feeling up to it at the moment'. I had no idea all the various cousins were getting the same treatment.

So maybe sometimes there are relatives creeping out of the woodwork - but there are some pretty manipulative people on both sides. My own philosophy is that it is up to the person leaving the money as to who they give it to, but heaven only knows what that nurse was telling my grandfather.

The local hospice, crun, usually needs money.

My mother in law is in a home at the moment, and her two sons have power of attorney for her. She left a third each to her three sons, but because my husband has died, his third would have gone to our two sons. However, his brothers did not think it fair that I was left out, so she has now signed a new will to split his share three ways, between myself and our sons.
There probably will not be any left after the care home fees have been taken into account, but I appreciate the thought.
It's the thought behind a will that matters, not the amount.

When my dad died, the two people he wanted some left to were my mum, even though she left us when I was 10, and his lady friend of 15 years, who was very kind to us. I don't think any of the rest of the family know, unless my mum told them.

Smaller local charities?

The ones you've never heard of, which struggle to keep afloat, let alone pay their chief executives whopping great salaries.

I was executor for my parents will and I had to get probate sorted out.
This was no easy business. I had to prove who I was and to swear/affirm under oath that I would carry out the wishes of the will as written.

My sister was also an executor and as she lives about 100 miles away she had to sign to agree that I should be the sole representive as I was in the right probate area.

Abbey most of what you reported was criminal. It was variously theft, deception or fraud and was a job for the police. Why wasn't it reported?

The law on wills is quite clear. Make a legal will when you are fully in your right mind and you are home and dry. Wills are contested when either their are doubts about the circumstances in which it was made or when someone dependent on the deceased is left without support.

The case in the newspaper was ridiculous the person making the query had absolutely no right to any of the estate unless it was explicitly left to him in the will, or he could prove that his uncle intended to leave him something and had been pressured into making a will cutting him out. If the uncle just chose to leave the money to other relations there was nothing he could do.

If you do not make a will the money goes first to your children, if there are none it goes to your parents and siblings and then your parent's siblings and descendants. Only blood relatives can inherit

Unfortunately quite a number of my family have died intestate so I have become very familiar with the laws of intestacy. DH inherited £169 from the grand daughter of his grandfather's youngest sister. It was a large family and neither he nor any of the other legatees even knew of this ladies existence until the letter arrived from the solicitor. DDiL also inherited this way from an unknown cousin of her (long deceased) father.

Hmm no reply from abbey I am sorry but I think this is all a bit of a story, there are strict rules and if there was theft involved then he or she should have gone to the police or consulted a solicitor. Just make a will, it is quite simple. If you dont, then your family will inherit, whether you like them or not.

I think a person who has had a carer for some considerable time and has genuinely felt that this person has provided friendship, comfort and practical assistance far beyond what would normally be expected of an employee, then it seems reasonable that the person might want to leave some or all of his/her estate to this employee.

However, if the employee has encouraged or even instigated a bogus romantic "script" and has taken advantage of her employer's physical and emotional vulnerability, that is indefensible and I believe it should be challenged.

Without knowing the people involved or the full facts I can't see how outsiders can judge which of these accounts is the true one.

I have to say, though, that if I had a close relative with whom I had a sustained and caring relationship and then found out that someone of whom I had been suspicious and who had been in a position to apply undue influence had been left the whole of my relative's fortune, I would consider following it up too.

If, however, I did not have a close and caring relationship with my relative and had not exchanged correspondence on a reasonably regular basis or visited fairly often, I would not feel entitled to kick up a fuss about the contents of that relative's will.

Many people have posted their experiences with getting probate or with sorting out inheritance when there is no will. No-one seems to have met as many greedy, unscrupulous relatives and thieving carers as abbey has.

Perhaps she has been unlucky.

I would reach the opposite conclusion to the one he/she did, though - it is really important to make a proper will and make sure that it is kept safe for when it it needed, and if you know of anyone breaking the law to obtain miney under false pretences, don't keep quiet about it.