Property in trust query

[Wendywoo54]

Hi my father has recently passed away. He has left a will with three executors. One of the executors his wife has no contact at all with myself and other executor. A caveat has been entered as we still have not heard anything. The will states half his property ( the wife lives in ) is to be held in trust for his daughters. I contacted a solicitor who told me we could apply for probate via them but the cost could be in excess of £6.000 I don’t even know if my father has this money left in his accounts to afford this and we cannot afford to pay. We cannot do probate alone as she has previously refused to share any financial information under her power of attorney even though I was also joint/ several attorney. So I don’t know how to proceed to ensure she shows my fathers financial information and we ensure the property is placed into trust correctly ? She refuses all communication with myself and other executor. So feel stuck…. Any ideas please ? Thanks

[dslippy]

The shorrt answer is to apply to court - but the expense may be prohibitive.

[Wendywoo54]

Yes she is refusing to speak or cooperate.

[Sam101]

Just to clarify, your father has died and his Will leaves his half of the house in Trust to the daughters, with a Life Interest for his wife to live in the property.

This being so, the executors need to apply for Probate and the three executors are legally obliged to do this. If any of the executors chooses not to act, then they can withdraw, but what they cannot do is stop the others from proceeding. If an executor does not act correctly, then the others can apply to the Probate Court to explain the position and apply to have them removed.

It is not clear what you are saying about Power of Attorney, does she hold this over the wife. Please explain this. Even holding such power does not give the right to obstruct Probate.

The solicitors charges for Probate can often be met after the second death from the property value. However, the charges of solicitors do vary a great deal and there are also Probate Companies offering to deal with Probate for a fixed fee often lower than solicitors charge. Possibly worth considering when the time comes. However, Probate is not terribly difficult, just a process of filling in forms and the Probate Office often are called on to help those who have difficulty. Don't think of it as a great legal problem when a large number of people do obtain Probate themselves.

First problem is to clarify a few more details on this site and then let the 'difficult executor' know that they could end up with large legal costs if they continue to be obstructive. Please let us know more.