Will / no Will question

czech

Hi
Hope to get some information to a situation that has happened recently in the family.
A brother of my mam has passed away leaving no family of his own to leave his estate to. One of his brothers has said that the estate is his and a solicitor is executor to the estate and that is final . The will has not been shown to others of the family and the solicitor has been economical with information . My question is how do we progress to get clarity / transparancy
on this situation.
Thanks in advance for any input

coylemj

Is that a mistype and did you mean to refer to a 'half-brother' of your mam? It doesn't affect the legal situation anyway.

If there is a will then your uncle was free to leave the estate to whoever he pleased. The will has to be the subject of probate after which anyone can ask to get a copy and at that stage the assets can be distributed by the executor.

If there is no will then the rule for the distribution is as follows, assuming both your mam's parents are dead....

69.—(1) If an intestate dies leaving neither spouse nor issue nor parent, his estate shall be distributed between his brothers and sisters in equal shares, and, if any brother or sister does not survive the intestate, the surviving children of the deceased brother or sister shall, where any other brother or sister of the deceased survives him, take in equal shares the share that their parent would have taken if he or she had survived the intestate.

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/1965/en/act/pub/0027/sec0069.html#sec69

So if all of your mam's siblings are alive then they all get an equal share but if any of them predeceased her brother and left children, those children get the deceased parent's share to split among them.

Your best bet might be to get a solicitor to write on behalf of your mam to the brother's solicitor to find out what's going on.

czech

(fixed the writing error) We have been told verbally by my uncle (who will receive the estate)
that the estate is his , yet no will has been shown to remaining siblings so before we engage a solicitor of our own any info would be welcome Thanks

Santa Cruz

In due course the will, if it exists, will become a public document. However at that stage estate assets such as cash assets could have been disposed of. I think that action is required and fast. Engage a solicitor to establish whether or not there is a will. Refusal or non cooperation can be dealt with by a trip to the High Court for an injunction preventing any disposal of assets

coylemj

czech wrote: »

(fixed the writing error) We have been told verbally by my uncle (who will receive the estate)
that the estate is his , yet no will has been shown to remaining siblings so before we engage a solicitor of our own any info would be welcome Thanks

Is the uncle saying that there is a will and that it leaves everything to him? If there is a will and a solicitor is named as executor then it's highly probably that the assets will be disposed of in accordance with the will. Otherwise the solicitor (as executor) could be sued by the beneficiaries if they are at a loss as result of delays or incompetence on his part.

Santa Cruz

coylemj wrote: »

Is the uncle saying that there is a will and that it leaves everything to him? If there is a will and a solicitor is named as executor then it's highly probably that the assets will be disposed of in accordance with the will. Otherwise the solicitor (as executor) could be sued by the beneficiaries if they are at a loss as result of delays or incompetence on his part.

That is a very important point. The solicitor as executor doesn't have to disclose the contents to everyone but in due course it will become known so he cannot gain by any hookey stufff

czech

Thank you both for your feed back , I shall follow your advice and hopefully things will come to a satisfactory end Regards

P. Breathnach

czech wrote: »

... the solicitor has been economical with information...

If what your uncle says is true, then the solicitor should be economical with information. That is because if you are not beneficiaries, you have no more right to information from the solicitor than I, a total stranger, have.

If the solicitor confirms that there is a will and he or she is the executor, that is all you can reasonably be told. As coylemj has said, the will will become a public document after probate has been granted (probably in a few months' time). You can then inspect it.