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Recommended English Family Law Solicitors required to contest the will of my elderly mother's late husband who has left the entire estate to his children who are from a previous marriage
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My elderly mother in her 70s is the surviving spouse of her late husband (my step father) who died a few months ago. Under the terms of his will, she has received no financial provision whatsoever, aside from a proportion of his pension and the right to remain living in the property they shared. The entirety of the estate has been left to his four middle aged children from a previous marriage, these children are not her biological children.
This situation has placed my mother in a deeply vulnerable and distressing position. While she may remain in the home, there are no funds available for:
· Essential maintenance or repairs
· Household emergencies
· Property-related costs
· Her financial security and wellbeing
Given her age and circumstances, this outcome appears fundamentally unfair and raises serious concerns regarding reasonable financial provision for a surviving spouse.
My mother and her late husband were married for over 25 years and prior to that she lived as her common law spouse with him for approximately 7 years; she has contributed throughout the marriage with loyalty and devotion, contributing financially when she was employed in various full time and part time jobs for those years they were together.
According to the will, her late husband’s children will receive ALL of the assets from the marriage, this includes the house, the two cars, the husbands’ shares, the savings in the husbands’ bank accounts and the husbands’ part ownership in a business. In the will it is written that although my mother does not own the (home) property that she shared with her husband she is meant to wholly pay out of her own pocket to maintain it and after she is deceased, the property will pass onto the four children of her late husband from a previous marriage.
The amount she would receive from her late husband from the private pension that she inherited does not adequately provide for contingency for any of life’s emergencies or any care that she may require in the future; also it is unfair that she has to pay for the structural maintenance of the property given that she doesn’t own it and that it will be passed onto her late husband’s children. We have requested from the probate solicitor that her late husband’s children must be informed that there must be some payment / provision for the upkeep of the property that they have to pay not her but I fear that this will be rejected.
My mother has not only undergone stress with the death of her husband but also with the dealings with the probate solicitors whereby she’s had to dig out and provide to them several documents (bank statements, shares investment reports, deeds to the house etc) pertaining to her late husband’s financial wealth (which she will not receive and will only benefit his children from a previous marriage). During this handover of documents it has been revealed by examining her late husband’s documents that her late husband had secretly unknown to my mother, gifted around £70,000 to EACH of his four children from around the period of 2001-2009; these are individuals who are all married now and are financially secure with spouses.
Suffice to say that many people including myself deem the inheritance left to my mother by her late husband is inadequate and unjust and we are aware that there is a time limit whereby we can contest the will to seek a more fair inheritance from the estate presumably via the courts using The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
So given this we are seeking recommendations for any English family law legal solicitors to help us fight this in the courts, preferably in the North West England area as there probably would be the need for face to face meetings; note that my mother herself prior to this was only on the basic state pension as the only source of income, she has no savings and her late husband never gifted her large amounts of money like he did with his own biological children so legal fees paid up front would be problematic; it would have to be some other financial arrangement which would draw legal fees from any wealth sourced from the estate after successfully contesting the will.
It’s hard to estimate the entire value of the estate as I’ve not been handling the paper work but I would estimate that my mother’s late husband’s estate will leave around £110K-£180K to EACH of his FOUR children in terms of the value of the more liquid assets (shares in parts of his business, market shares, investments, savings etc) and in addition to that, the house is worth around £280K-£320K. It is also worth noting that it is almost certain that my mother’s late husband’s four children will legally fight this; they are involved in a legal dispute right now over the inheritance of their own mother when it transpired that one of them sold an apartment belonging to her mother very soon after her death and kept the proceeds without sharing with the other siblings.
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My elderly mother in her 70s is the surviving spouse of her late husband (my step father) who died a few months ago. Under the terms of his will, she has received no financial provision whatsoever, aside from a proportion of his pension and the right to remain living in the property they shared. The entirety of the estate has been left to his four middle aged children from a previous marriage, these children are not her biological children.
This situation has placed my mother in a deeply vulnerable and distressing position. While she may remain in the home, there are no funds available for:
· Essential maintenance or repairs
· Household emergencies
· Property-related costs
· Her financial security and wellbeing
Given her age and circumstances, this outcome appears fundamentally unfair and raises serious concerns regarding reasonable financial provision for a surviving spouse.
My mother and her late husband were married for over 25 years and prior to that she lived as her common law spouse with him for approximately 7 years; she has contributed throughout the marriage with loyalty and devotion, contributing financially when she was employed in various full time and part time jobs for those years they were together.
According to the will, her late husband’s children will receive ALL of the assets from the marriage, this includes the house, the two cars, the husbands’ shares, the savings in the husbands’ bank accounts and the husbands’ part ownership in a business. In the will it is written that although my mother does not own the (home) property that she shared with her husband she is meant to wholly pay out of her own pocket to maintain it and after she is deceased, the property will pass onto the four children of her late husband from a previous marriage.
The amount she would receive from her late husband from the private pension that she inherited does not adequately provide for contingency for any of life’s emergencies or any care that she may require in the future; also it is unfair that she has to pay for the structural maintenance of the property given that she doesn’t own it and that it will be passed onto her late husband’s children. We have requested from the probate solicitor that her late husband’s children must be informed that there must be some payment / provision for the upkeep of the property that they have to pay not her but I fear that this will be rejected.
My mother has not only undergone stress with the death of her husband but also with the dealings with the probate solicitors whereby she’s had to dig out and provide to them several documents (bank statements, shares investment reports, deeds to the house etc) pertaining to her late husband’s financial wealth (which she will not receive and will only benefit his children from a previous marriage). During this handover of documents it has been revealed by examining her late husband’s documents that her late husband had secretly unknown to my mother, gifted around £70,000 to EACH of his four children from around the period of 2001-2009; these are individuals who are all married now and are financially secure with spouses.
Suffice to say that many people including myself deem the inheritance left to my mother by her late husband is inadequate and unjust and we are aware that there is a time limit whereby we can contest the will to seek a more fair inheritance from the estate presumably via the courts using The Inheritance (Provision for Family and Dependants) Act 1975.
So given this we are seeking recommendations for any English family law legal solicitors to help us fight this in the courts, preferably in the North West England area as there probably would be the need for face to face meetings; note that my mother herself prior to this was only on the basic state pension as the only source of income, she has no savings and her late husband never gifted her large amounts of money like he did with his own biological children so legal fees paid up front would be problematic; it would have to be some other financial arrangement which would draw legal fees from any wealth sourced from the estate after successfully contesting the will.
It’s hard to estimate the entire value of the estate as I’ve not been handling the paper work but I would estimate that my mother’s late husband’s estate will leave around £110K-£180K to EACH of his FOUR children in terms of the value of the more liquid assets (shares in parts of his business, market shares, investments, savings etc) and in addition to that, the house is worth around £280K-£320K. It is also worth noting that it is almost certain that my mother’s late husband’s four children will legally fight this; they are involved in a legal dispute right now over the inheritance of their own mother when it transpired that one of them sold an apartment belonging to her mother very soon after her death and kept the proceeds without sharing with the other siblings.
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