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We were initially contacted by the cousin of the now deceased in order to make a Will for her.
The deceased was unwell and in hospital and it had come to the cousin’s attention that, while she had made several notes of her wishes, she had not made a formal Will. We met with the deceased to take her instructions however shortly thereafter she caught an infection, her ward was closed to visitors and she passed away without having made a Will.
When a person passes away without a Will their estate is legally known as "intestate2, and this means their assets pass in accordance with the law to their closest living relative/s. The order of beneficiaries is spouse, children, parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, aunts and uncles, cousins and then remoter relations. Only blood or adoptive relatives are included and therefore this does not include any stepchildren or spouses of family members.
When there is no Will, a beneficiary becomes the person/s entitled to administer the estate by obtaining Letters of Administration. The order of who can obtain the Letters are similar to those to determine who the beneficiaries are; spouse, children, parents and so on. It is therefore important to ensure you have located this person, so instructions are taken correctly.
The challenges were speaking with the cousin to establish the family tree to the best of her knowledge and then contacting a genealogist to obtain a full family tree. The cousin was, naturally, only aware of their side of the family.
The deceased was a widow and did not have any children. She had one sibling who passed away several years before, unmarried and also without children. This meant that in order to find the correct beneficiaries, we needed to go one generation up and locate the aunts and uncles of the deceased and their children if they had predeceased the deceased and so on.
It is always important to ensure that, where there is no Will, as much as possible, you are in receipt of the full family tree so as not to accidentally disinherit a beneficiary.
Once the beneficiaries are located, it is important to calculate what share is due to each of them.
The cousin, as a beneficiary, became entitled to obtain the Letters of Administration and instructed us to assist in the administration. The process thereafter was :-
A regulated genealogist company was instructed on behalf of the cousin to locate the full family tree.
The paternal side was relatively small, the deceased's father only having one sibling, however her mother had three siblings who in turn each had several children.
In total, there were 26 beneficiaries discovered to be entitled from the estate.
Each person’s entitlement was determined by how far down the family tree they were. As there were four siblings in total, each share started as a 1/4 share. This was then further divided with each generation depending on how many people there are within that group
With this estate, the range of entitlements varied from one of the beneficiaries being entitled to a 1/4 share whilst another with the smallest share received 1/60.
We obtained insurance to cover the event of any beneficiary having been missed. We also placed what is known as a ‘S27 advert’ in the London Gazette and the local newspaper to where the deceased resided. This allowed for any potential creditors, debtors or claimants to contact the administrator to lodge their interest in the estate.
By not creating a valid Will, the deceased's estate passed to her relatives many of whom she had never met. Based on the notes she had written, this was not her wish as to who should inherit form her estate.
It is important to create a Will to ensure that your assets pass to the person/s you wish and to state any specific wishes you may have.
In a situation such as this, administtration took far longer than it would have with a Will and created a larger cost to the estate meaning there were less funds for the beneficiaries.
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