Mr and Mrs Williams were both aged 55. They had a son aged 23 and a married daughter of 27. Mr Williams had recently inherited a house from his mother and had sold this for £80.000; he had invested half this money in shares and the other half was on deposit in the Building Society.
Mr Williams died unexpectedly without leaving a Will. He had been expecting to retire within the next few years and had built up £93,000 in his pension fund - he was also insured for a death in service benefit of 4 times his salary. He was earning £24,000 at the time. Fortunately, Mr and Mrs Williams had paid off their mortgage and their house was in joint names.
Excluding the house and personal chattels. Mr Williams left an estate of £269,000. Because there was no Will, Mrs Williams was allowed £125,000 absolutely. Of the remaining £144.000, Mrs Williams was entitled to £72.000 to provide an income ~ but she is not allowed to spend any of this capital - she has to pass this on to her son and daughter.
The other £72,000 should be divided between the son and daughter. Mrs Williams daughter and son- in-law were running their own business; within 15 months of Mr Williams death, their business ran into trouble accumulating large debts. The daughter’s inheritance of £36,000 was counted among their assets and she had no option but to take his sum of money out of the family funds.
The story above is fairly typical. Probably, Mr Williams would have wanted his wife to have full unrestricted access to his estate. Mrs Williams is now much less comfortably provided for than she would have been if Mr Williams had written a straightforward Will. But there are many worse examples.
If the house is not in joint names or if the estate is not passing between husband and wife then it frequently occurs that the family home has to be sold to meet the requirements of the Intestacy Rules. You can work out some other examples for yourself.
The names and situation are fiction; it’s just to show you what could happen as we don’t like to (won’t) talk about client’s individual situations; they’re private!
Filed under: Wills
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