Genealogy Chat

I am asking for a friend.

His father died in April this year and left a will. His parents divorced when he was 13 years old because his father was having an affair, he remarried and had another child who is now 30? and single.

His father did leave a will. How long does it take for a will to be proved and how does he find out if he is mentioned in the will?. His new wife will not divulge any information and he does not know the name of his father's solicitor or who the executers are.

This can be a useful site

http://www.bereavementadvice.org/probate-and-other-legal-procedures/understanding-the-probate-process.php

Thanks Jayne

Have looked at this but it doesn't mention any kind of time scale.

Friend is concerned because neither himself or his brother and sister have been contacted by anyone since his fathers funeral. His father's second wife knows the addresses of all of the children from the first marriage.

My friend and his siblings kept in contact with his father (albeit infrequently) throughout his life.

Hi Libby,

It's not an easy thing to answer as there are many possibilities, been there and done it and I was amazed at what happened to me, not something I would like to put on here in detail.

Usually it is all done within a few months, so I would have thought this one had reached Probate, try contacting Holborn Probate Office to see if it has been granted, also there are only a few local offices for a large area, if you know the area they live in try the local one as well, but please bear in mind if a solicitor is dealing with the estate, they will register it in their local area, so basically it could be anywhere.

It is also possible that, for whatever reason, it hasn't yet been done.

My Dad died in 2005 and his was only done after my Mum passed away in Jan 2007, both of these will only show in the register this year, I wasn't named as an executer on either of them and had to apply as Legal something or other to do both, so I think that there probably is no time scale, also my Grandad was still named as owner of their house on the deeds, he died in 1982 and it seems that title just passed to my Dad without any documents being legally changed, a death cert was enough.

Any idea how your friend knows that there was a will and how old this will was?

Could there have been a recent one that leaves it all to his wife?

I wish your friend much luck in his search, but he should do something now before it is all too late or he will never know.

Would love to know the outcome, but I don't post here very often.

Kind regards
Amanda

Did he make the will after he remarried? If he'd made one before he remarried then it would have become null and void on his marriage.

Jill

.....and in the absence of a new will , it will all have automatically gone to his surviving current wife

Hi,
According to our local Probate Office I was recently told that not all wills go to probate. He said that some for as little as £100 could and some for under £50,000 don't.
So you could be waiting for ever.
Herbert

There is no timescale. It depends on the executors desire to progress and the state of the deceased financial affairs at the time of death.

If the surviving spouse inherits all automatically, i.e joint ownership of property, house, bank accounts etc, then there may be no point in going to probate as there is nothing to pass on.

As Jill states, earlier wills are automatically revoked on re-marriage, which may be a factor in this case.

Thanks for your replies

He heard about the will at his fathers funeral, from his stepmother, she intimated that he and his siblings were mentioned in the will.

I did tell him that he may not get anything especially as his half sister has downes syndrome and a lot of money has been spent on her care and education. I would imagine that her father would have made sure she was taken care of financially, especially as her mother is now in her mid/late seventies. In addition to this a lot of money may have been swallowed up because his father was in a nursing home for the last 2 years of his life.

He should probably just wait and see. Don't think he would contact the new family because there is "no love lost", mainly due to the hurt my friend thought his mum suffered.

Familys eh.

He should get some legal advice so that he can find out who is handling matters and that it is being done correctly. Waiting to see probably isn't very wise - if money is distributed wrongly its not going to be cheap, easy or very pretty when it needs to get sorted. He is not causing trouble by asking a question like this - other people are being unreasonable by not answering his questions. It may be that there is nothing to distribute but he has a right to know.

Just to correct one point mentioned above - Wills are invalidated on marriage (unless a Will is made on anticipation of the marriage) but the absence of a Will does not mean a spouse inherits everything. The spouse is entitled to be housed and to have an income but the balance goes to any children.

It is however common for spouses to jointly own property, bank accounts and other assets. If things are jointly owned they pass directly to the other party and do not form part of the Estate left in the Will