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Hi everyone
I wondered if anyone could help me find out which court granted administrator power.
Long story short in February 23 my sister in law passed away suddenly. My partner was one of 6 children and sadly their parents had long since past away. As SIL (sis in law) was not really that old she had not done a will and thus the eldest of the siblings took it on herself to apply for administration rights to sort out the estate etc as she was retired and had more time than the others.
We live in the North, SIL lived in North Wales and rest of the siblings live in Liverpool. We are not sure which court was applied to for probate (whether it was in Liverpool or in SIL home area of North Wales).
SIL had no children but had a horse. It was decided by eldest to have the horse transferred to her name so she would deal with it. No one really got a say in the matter as she basically told everyone after she had done it! As SIL was in the middle of getting all her pensions put into one pot she had a financial advisor but one insurance did not have to go through probate and so all the siblings got a payment of £17k each directly into their bank. This did not go down well with the eldest sibling sorting out the estate as she wanted it all in one pot for her to deal with. She was straight in the group chat asking everyone to transfer £8k of that to the horse fund as it was having full livery in the stables. Everyone sent their money over like ordered. Further discussions were to be had when all the estate etc was dealt with on what would happen next...
Time went on and no information was found to be forthcoming yet no one wanted to ask as they didn't want to be seen as "making it about money".... Anyway September 25 came and we were informed that the SIS house was going up for sale. That was the only information that we had had since the death of SIL. Finally the house sold and we were relieved as this would mean that everything could be tied up and put to rest.
Now to our knowledge there was a death in service from the bank where she worked (had a team under her so would imagine on a decent salary), what ever insurances she had, the house which sold for around £280k and whatever else we have no idea about. We have not been kept in the loop about anything so are totally clueless to what actually was coming in and the eldest sibling is not willing to inform us by the looks of it.
Time was ticking by and then suddenly a month ago my partner got a text message to ask for bank details as she wanted to make a "deposit" into our bank. Later in the day my partner got a notification he had received some money. He logged on to see £10k from his sister. Confused he rang his sister and asked what the £10k was. She informed him that it was his share of the inheritance! He asked her how she had come to that figure (£10k x 5 remaining siblings = £50k which is significantly lower than what was expected by the sale of everything). She refused to discuss it and informed him that the rest of the money is for the horse and there would be no more money coming.
The other siblings are too scared to say anything or take any further action as they are all a little worried as the eldest sister can be quite ferocious but we are keen to find out more. We did ask around a few legal sites and were informed that as SIL had no will this should be split between the siblings equally so basically a fifth of everything should be available to the beneficiaries. As administrator she had a legal fiduciary duty to provide a full breakdown of assets and be transparent. We have asked the questions but she wont discuss with us. We have no knowledge of what came in or went out and just have the say so of eldest sibling that £10k is all we are getting and to be right about things it is officially all the horses money! The legal sites we discussed with told us we should send her a letter giving her a few weeks to produce an inventory and account order or we would seek the courts help to compel her to make a sworn statement. We were also told she could not hold money for the horse as it had no claim to the money and she could only keep her one fifth of the total amount and the rest should be paid to each sibling.
We have sent her the letter asking for this but we are coming up to the deadline we issued her with and we have heard nothing. No letter, text, call. Next step will be to go to the court and ask them to issue her with an order to give the information and our share to us. We however do not know which court granted probate. I have searched online and have found her probate number but it does not give us details of the court that it was in. We also found out that probate was actually granted in November 23 which was the same year as she died yet we are now in Nov 25 so unless she was just keeping hold of the money till the house sold we are at a loss as to why we were kept in the dark for so long.
So my question is how do I find out which court we need to get in touch with to ask for help?
Sorry you have been given half the life story but I wanted to include details so people can see the picture and why we are doing what we are doing. Partner feels rather bad as the other siblings are willing to just let her keep it but why should we allow her to keep what could be around £500k just because she wants to have power?
I wondered if anyone could help me find out which court granted administrator power.
Long story short in February 23 my sister in law passed away suddenly. My partner was one of 6 children and sadly their parents had long since past away. As SIL (sis in law) was not really that old she had not done a will and thus the eldest of the siblings took it on herself to apply for administration rights to sort out the estate etc as she was retired and had more time than the others.
We live in the North, SIL lived in North Wales and rest of the siblings live in Liverpool. We are not sure which court was applied to for probate (whether it was in Liverpool or in SIL home area of North Wales).
SIL had no children but had a horse. It was decided by eldest to have the horse transferred to her name so she would deal with it. No one really got a say in the matter as she basically told everyone after she had done it! As SIL was in the middle of getting all her pensions put into one pot she had a financial advisor but one insurance did not have to go through probate and so all the siblings got a payment of £17k each directly into their bank. This did not go down well with the eldest sibling sorting out the estate as she wanted it all in one pot for her to deal with. She was straight in the group chat asking everyone to transfer £8k of that to the horse fund as it was having full livery in the stables. Everyone sent their money over like ordered. Further discussions were to be had when all the estate etc was dealt with on what would happen next...
Time went on and no information was found to be forthcoming yet no one wanted to ask as they didn't want to be seen as "making it about money".... Anyway September 25 came and we were informed that the SIS house was going up for sale. That was the only information that we had had since the death of SIL. Finally the house sold and we were relieved as this would mean that everything could be tied up and put to rest.
Now to our knowledge there was a death in service from the bank where she worked (had a team under her so would imagine on a decent salary), what ever insurances she had, the house which sold for around £280k and whatever else we have no idea about. We have not been kept in the loop about anything so are totally clueless to what actually was coming in and the eldest sibling is not willing to inform us by the looks of it.
Time was ticking by and then suddenly a month ago my partner got a text message to ask for bank details as she wanted to make a "deposit" into our bank. Later in the day my partner got a notification he had received some money. He logged on to see £10k from his sister. Confused he rang his sister and asked what the £10k was. She informed him that it was his share of the inheritance! He asked her how she had come to that figure (£10k x 5 remaining siblings = £50k which is significantly lower than what was expected by the sale of everything). She refused to discuss it and informed him that the rest of the money is for the horse and there would be no more money coming.
The other siblings are too scared to say anything or take any further action as they are all a little worried as the eldest sister can be quite ferocious but we are keen to find out more. We did ask around a few legal sites and were informed that as SIL had no will this should be split between the siblings equally so basically a fifth of everything should be available to the beneficiaries. As administrator she had a legal fiduciary duty to provide a full breakdown of assets and be transparent. We have asked the questions but she wont discuss with us. We have no knowledge of what came in or went out and just have the say so of eldest sibling that £10k is all we are getting and to be right about things it is officially all the horses money! The legal sites we discussed with told us we should send her a letter giving her a few weeks to produce an inventory and account order or we would seek the courts help to compel her to make a sworn statement. We were also told she could not hold money for the horse as it had no claim to the money and she could only keep her one fifth of the total amount and the rest should be paid to each sibling.
We have sent her the letter asking for this but we are coming up to the deadline we issued her with and we have heard nothing. No letter, text, call. Next step will be to go to the court and ask them to issue her with an order to give the information and our share to us. We however do not know which court granted probate. I have searched online and have found her probate number but it does not give us details of the court that it was in. We also found out that probate was actually granted in November 23 which was the same year as she died yet we are now in Nov 25 so unless she was just keeping hold of the money till the house sold we are at a loss as to why we were kept in the dark for so long.
So my question is how do I find out which court we need to get in touch with to ask for help?
Sorry you have been given half the life story but I wanted to include details so people can see the picture and why we are doing what we are doing. Partner feels rather bad as the other siblings are willing to just let her keep it but why should we allow her to keep what could be around £500k just because she wants to have power?
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