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

As for solicitors. My aunt had bought her home back in 1949 when she married. Back them there was no obligation to registera house with the land registry. The deeds were all important. The deeds were lodged with the local solicitor (grandson of the man who was my aunts original solicitor) - even he was a bloody fool ( sorry to say it!). These deeds were important as they were the only way to prove ownership of the house ( unusual but with old people like my aunt, still possible).

He should have known and checked the details. However the brother in lawwent to see him ( with the death certificate - its a nightmare once someone has this really) and said he wanted the deds to sell the house
(as he was her " brother".)
The solicitorsoffice had not been able to find the deeds at the time and he was supposed to call for them that Monday morning.

By now the undertaker had got to me. So I was becoming aware. I called the undertaker and tried to explain the situation and I said " When I have the letters of administration I will come to you for the deeds, not before. Please do not give them to anyone else as I know someone has been asking for them and was coming in that morning".

There was silence on the phone and a scurry around the office ( I could hear)..... then I heard someone shout "you mean we have given the deeds to the wrong person?" .... more scurrying and talking followed by a return to me saying the deeds were still in the office and " Mr X " ( the solicitor) "would not have allowed them out" - yeah, which clearly meant they were just short of doing it. So much for solicitors.

Forgive my cynicism.

<<<<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.>>>>>

No reply from Abbey because she has other things to do. I am here now.

I did go to the police. They did not want to take action.
They were reluctant because the man concerned was 85. They didnt want to investigate - and as there was no " break in" ( he had the keys) it was not technically a burglary ( they said). In fact, they like the pensions people and the local council treated me as the one who was a criminal. I had to prove I wasthe rightful inheritor because they were all convinced that this brother in law was a brother and had a right to the inheritance ( because he kept saying so).

You need to realise all of this took place within a few days of her dying and I was not even aware she had been taken to hospital because I was not informed. Her brother in law ( who I think was told to tell me) clearly had other plans. The hospital , who had me down on record as
"next of kin" didnt tell me and he told them he was her " brother"
(missed off the in law bit) and they didnt check,they handed over her effects and the death certificate.

From there he got what he needed.

I will reiterate because this is true, you do not need letters of administration to get small amounts of cash out of a bank /building society , you only need the death certificate and to rock upand lie clearly. No checks. The death certificate is all.

Once you have the keys to a house ,illegal or otherwise, once you have keys, thats it it seems.

He came to a halt when it was down to needing letters of administration.

Still he had to bury her and it was when the undertaker came on the scene that I got informed because the undertaker knew her ( burried my uncle) and knew I was her next of kin. He called me and wasalert to what the man had been doing too. He told me.

But it was still a nightmare. It felt as if everyone I spoke to thought I was trying to rip this man off not the other way round.

If someone does not have full mental capacity, then any will made when they were in that state is invalid. There are quite a lot of other reasons why people contest wills. It can be a very complicated business when there have been two or more marriages and several families are involved.

People need to make wills while they have full mental capacity. That way, it should stop most of the claims being made against them.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Smaller local charities?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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?

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'm staggered

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

Merlot- did you really mean £800,000?

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!

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 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.

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).

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.