JenJen

I had my grandmothers last will through this last week...
and she left EVERYTHING to my 3 boys (the last year + she was alive she suffered with a dementia type condition and didn't remember we had a daughter most of the time). I think it's great that she has done that for my kids but her brother was made executor of her estate to carry out what she wanted done after she passed away...

Now the boys have money each... which is lovely but her will read specifically that all her belongings real and personal were to go to them and be divided between them ?

Now I take that to mean that we should have been able to take the boys along and for them to claim anything they wanted from her belongings, pictures teddy bears and whatever before any decisions were made as to what was done with the rest? Does anyone know if i've got this right?
Also the boys asked to have one of her photo albums she showed them ALL the time from when she was little to when I was little .... or they'd have liked a handful of photo's - all we've been sent is 2 blurry photo's that as far as I'm aware didn't come from any album of hers i've seen.

Does anyone know what if anything I can do, I don't want it to sound like her gift of money for the boys isn't enough as it's very kind of her but the boys loved her a great deal and would have liked to keep something more personal....

Many Thanks

Jen

Pozz

Sorry for your loss, and deepest sympathies. Losing a loved grand parent is awful.

If she had requested all her belongings go to your boys then surely they are to have everything she leaves behind.

I hope I read your post correctly but I would think anything that was hers is theirs.

JenJen

thanks pozz

it sounds so ungrateful to say all they got was some money and a couple of photo's and I don't mean it like that and we are very grateful that she chose to give them anything but in my mind hasn't her brother gone against her legal last will and testament by not allowing the boys to have her personal things or the choice to have them also ???

If I've got this right I'm hoping someone can tell me what / if anything I can do about it?
Not that I need all the extra aggro cause we have to move house in the next few weeks and all sorts else going on but if the boys should have had personal things of hers then i'd feel awful not to try and make sure they got them....

Many Thanks

Pozz

I think as its a legal document held by your grandmothers solicitor I would contact them.

My understanding is if your boys have inherited everything, then it is up to them what happens with her possessions. Nobody else can take what they want without prior agreement.

JenJen

I don't know who her solicitor was
I got sent everything including her last will and testament from her brother who is executor !

Pozz

It may well be a case of asking her brother if he knows there whereabouts of the more personal items that have sentiment to your boys, as they would really appreciate them.

Ultimately if everything is legally theirs then the brother has broken the law removing any items, but that could be tricky to prove if it was after your grandmother passed away and there will be resentment no doubt.

dfjordan

I don´t understand how you can ask whether or not the children can have certain items as from what you say, the will clearly says they were left everything she had ( ie real and personal = total possessions) so there can be no doubt. It´s the brother that sounds like he has a problem if he hasn´t followed the will. If that´s the case then you can always make an objection in the court as he has no legal right to make any decisions regarding the distribution of her estate. All he is entitled to do, and is legally bound to do, is carry out the instructions to the best of his ability. Hence if you know of assets that he has not passed on to the children you should claim them via the court if necessary or if he wrongly disposed of them, you should be able to sue him for the loss.

Bermudashorts

According to the will, the boys were left all the possessions. Although the point you made about dementia would perhaps bring some doubt onto the will if it were challenged, but even if that happened, her brother does not get more of a say in this than you would.

Having said all that, please can I implore you to try and sort it out amicably and not let something like this bring a split into the family. Surely if you say to your uncle that the boys would like to come to the house and select some personal items he is not going to say no they cannot. At the same time, the boys probably do not need or require everything and so other family members could take items of sentimental value too, including her brother. He did spend a lifetime with her after all.

I have just administered my father's estate (there was no will), it was to be shared between myself and my three siblings. It made it harder when it came to personal effects but I did it the best way I could and I think it was fair overall.

But there has still been a huge rift in our family, two sisters against another two. This is because 9 days before my father died, eldest sister swiped all the family photos from the family home under his nose. She then did not lift a finger to help whilst I sorted out income tax, inheritance tax, getting probate, bills, funeral expenses, looking after the house, clearing the house, selling the house etc.

After six months I asked her to share out the photos she had taken. the result is that she has not spoken to me since. Nine months later I finally sold the house and sent out a cheque to each sister with a set of accounts. She and my younger sister banked the cheque and did not even say thank you for organising everything.

What I am trying to say, is that situations like this, even with the best will in the world, can cause enormous problems in families, so please tread carefully, regardless of your rights. I have been left with just one sister, I used to have three.

JenJen

There is no family harmony here either.

He told the home she was in NOT to contact me under any circumstances to tell me they'd move her elsewhere !
I wasn't well at the beginning of the year, we'd spoken to her at xmas and just after - she was upset as the dr had told her she was losing her marbles... how tactful :$
But then due to my ill health I hadn't called until I was better at the end of Jan and obviously got no reply, I knew she got taken out by a carer and just assumed i'd been very unlucky and missed speaking to her..
Then a week after i'd started calling again I got a letter from adult social services saying how sorry they were to hear that she'd passed away !!!
When I spoke to her original home I was told that her brother had insisted as executor that we were not informed she was being moved, nor were we told if I rang to spesak to them where she'd been moved to.

Therefore because he doesn't live close by he took her from a home she'd been in for nearly a year and a half in an area with people she knew etc to one miles away where she knew no one and had no visitors...

She didn't last even 3 weeks in there before she went rapidly down hill apparently.

When I found out I got his number and offered my condolences and asked why he'd behaved as he had, he said she'd made claims we told her we never wanted to see her again... which are untrue. She had Dementia and would come up with very wild things to say about people including him...
yet instead of taking them as what they were which was her dementia playing tricks on her mind he took them as gospel.

I'd said I don't know what is set out in her will but the boys would like a bear I gave to her years ago that used to sit on her bed he had a red jacket on and was called woody, they used to cuddle him if they were tired etc... I also said they would like her photo albums or a scattering of photo's from her as a girl to before she became very unwell when we moved out to Sydney, he refused but said he'd send a couple of pictures, which he did but they weren't out of her album - one was cut in half and the other was blurry
I also said the boys had asked about a few other things that were personal between them and my grandmother but he said when he sorted out the will they would get only what it stated they could have.
He then claimed to my dad that all the bears and other things they'd given away to charity
Had my boys in tears for 2 days after I told them she'd passed away in part cause it was so much of a shock, because we didn't get to say goodbye and because the little things they wanted they can't have - the boys never wanted any money it was the personal things that mattered to them

In the 5 years we spent looking after my gran so she could stay in her own home before we moved to Oz her brother never once visited and rarely called - maybe twice a year. Her sister that she had disowned when I was very little started going to see her after we moved to Sydney.. and would go once every 2 weeks... by then tho my gran was well into her dementia...

Her will was made in 2008 just prior to us going to Australia.... this was prior to the dementia taking hold of her....

I think I will do what you've suggested and remind him what my grans will said and see if he will then send the boys the other personal bits they want...
I know it would be hard to prove what he has ommitted to give them but in other ways it's clear he's not done his job when it says ALL real and personal belongings and they were given only money from what was left over after all the bills were done with... !