Help stepsons stolen from late fathers estate

[royalbluebunny]

Help, my late partner of 20 years died leaving me as sole beneficiary of his will with a trust fund set up for the children after my death. My partner owned two vintage cars worth quite a bit of money. I gifted one of these cars to my stepsons as my partner had said to me he thought the boys would have fun with this car. The other was part of my partners estate and was sent to be sold by me to pay off some of my late partners business debt. The car was up for sale for sometime and as it was being sold by a friend of the boys, they had most of the dealings with the garage. They had denied it had been sold and kept telling me it had not gone yet. I found out by the garage website that it had been sold. The garage owner said that the car was in the name of one of the sons, he must have fraudulently changed the v5 into his own name after the car had left my house to be sold. They will not speak to me now, I have told them that they need to pay the proceeds of sale into their fathers estate to be administered under the terms of his will. They will not pay back the money, effectively they have stolen the car and kept the money. Is this a criminal or civil matter. Help.

[des8]

Re: Help stepsons stolen from late fathers estate

Hi, & welcome
My condolences on your bereavement, and what a horrible situation to have to deal with at such a time.
Are you the executor of the estate?
If so the proper procedure is for you as executor to sue the son for the value of the car to be returned to the estate.
As the car did not belong to him, but he was selling it on behalf of the executor, retaining the proceeds of the sale is theft and is a criminal act and could be reported to the police. However the police will probably turn round and say it is a civil matter and won't get involved. They seem to have form for that attitude.
It is not difficult to have the V5c document changed. It is not proof of ownership, only of being the keeper.



All items owned by the deceased should become part of the inventory of the estate and go through probate. The spouse needs to pay the money back if the items are no longer in her possession.