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Equal right share

Ambersky · 2015-01-19 15:56:13

Does anyone here have any experience or advice to offer on the exercising of the right of a spouse to a legal right share of their deceased partners estate. My understanding is that this is not a challenge to a will but something that is automatic and is part of the duties of the executor to inform the surviving spouse of…

19-01-2015 3:56pm

#1

Ambersky

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Does anyone here have any experience or advice to offer on the exercising of the right of a spouse to a legal right share of their deceased partners estate.

My understanding is that this is not a challenge to a will but something that is automatic and is part of the duties of the executor to inform the surviving spouse of their right to one half of the estate if there are no children and one third if there are surviving children. Something Im told we have Haughey to thank for as he introduced it as a way of dealing with rural women sometimes even being without a home on the death of their husband and the inheritance of the farm going to a son.

If a spouse is in the position to be taking this up an additional one third out of a will is a sizable amount not to have accounted for and it kind of throws the rest of the will into disarray. The other people in the will may be wondering if the spouses share is going to come out of "their share" and this may lead to some upset. As far as I know the legal right share takes precedent over all other payments that have to be taken out of the estate, second only to taxes, so until it is settled no one owns anything.
I think that now many spouses hold the family home in joint tenancy so the family home automatically passes into ownership of the surviving spouse and it is not something that can therefore be willed to him/her or be included as part of the equal right share.

Im not sure if this is an unusual situation to be coming up but do the solicitors and the executor usually deal with this in a fairly legal and dispassionate manner. I would imaging if you were to ask those involved what they thought should happen or who they thought was or wasn't deserving of what, there could be chaos and maybe a lot of bad blood. Maybe opinions could be sought separately but who makes the decisions.
If the division is of money only that might make it easier but if there are goods or property how is that done.

Any advice on how to keep things calm,during such a process, things to avoid or watch out for would be appreciated. Best of all anyone who has had any experience on the matter Id be grateful to hear from.

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