Death of Sister - Council House

[Geoman]

Further to my last post.....

We need to advise the Council of my sister's death and will then have a limited time to clear the house.

However.......Her next of kin is in a home with alzheimer's so I'm guessing that legally, we have no right to do this.

As yet, no will has been found so the husband will be sole beneficiary of the estate. Whilst we have removed sack loads of paperwork to try and find important documents, can we go any further and clear the house? There seems to be nothing of value so it's likely that house clearance would be the best option.

Thanks.
G

[melonfool]

There isn't really a legal definition of 'next of kin' (except in some specific circs to do with the Mental health Act).

If there is no will, someone needs to apply to administer the estate. But if the husband is the only beneficiary I doubt he's going to complain if you sort the house out.

https://www.gov.uk/wills-probate-inheri ... ave-a-will

This seems to say it's only spouse or child but I'm sure if neither exist or is able to act then the next along - brother, will do.

Mel

[Geoman]

I bit of a follow up on this.

A solicitor has advised us that husband is first on the list to administer the estate. If we were to apply, we would have to prove his incapacity.

So at the moment there is a council house full of contents that we have no authority to move/dispose of etc. The value of the contents would be far less that the cost of storage or additional rent.

A complication is a son of the husband from a previous marriage. He will become (AFAIK) sole beneficiary of his father's estate. So if we clear the house we are told we could potentially face claims down the line for doing so the authority. We have been told to write to him regarding his father and taking on his financial affairs (without mentioning inheritance), so he may or may not want to be involved.

No one is coming forward to take on deputyship for the husband (two solicitors and the care home have advised us not to do so), so it could be months before a panel deputy is appointed.

No one is prepared to take on administration of the estate as it's becoming more complex day by day, so it looks like solicitors will be appointed eventually.

So, what can be done with the house contents? Once the council are told of sister's death, they will want the house returned within a limited time and it's unlikely anything will be resolved by then. If the house is not returned then they will start charging rent, which will wipe out any value of the contents.

Is there a simple way forward here?

[johnhemming]

I would assume that if there is no will everything goes to the husband (on the basis that there estate is not worth over 250K).
http://www.mindatrest.co.uk/blog/intest ... -flowchart

Hence you really need to make contact with his son. Or at least try to. It is quite a complicated situation and I would not want to give any real advice on a forum beyond making contact with the husband's son.

[Geoman]

I would assume that if there is no will everything goes to the husband (on the basis that there estate is not worth over 250K)

That's pretty much it. I've started going through some financial papers to try and establish a rough estate value but this is job in itself. It looks like a bomb went off in a filing system!

Even a solicitor told me to consider walking away from the situation, but there are some things that can be done to reduce costs later.

So we will write to the son at the address we found and see if we get a response. I imagine we can explain the legal situation to the council so if they decide to clear the house themselves, they can take on the risk involved. I believe there may even be other children from the same previous marriage somewhere.

The whole thing is a huge can of worms and a lesson to us all to make proper arrangements for when we inevitably die. For what appears to be a fairly small estate, it's going to take months, if not years to resolve, and I imagine what estate there is will be lost in legal fees.

[scotia]

Our experience in clearing the houses of our parents when they were in care (we had power of attorney) was that there was no value in their furnishings (which were in respectable order) - indeed we had to pay to have them cleared before their houses were sold.

[midnightcatprowl]

I can't give you any legal advice on this difficult situation but I have been involved in family deaths and house clearances and the general aftermaths of deaths in the family and also that of a close friend + inevitably have heard tales from other people having to deal with such things.

I entirely understand that, because it is your sister who has died, you want to help in this situation. Unfortunately the more you do or try to do the more likely it is that someone somewhere down the line will accuse you of having done the wrong thing.

I think you are already moving towards this point of view but I'd just like to emphasise it:

there is nothing you can do about the first person to inherit i.e. your sister's husband. It is up to those who now care for him and who have financial responsibility for him - the nursing home, the Council, whoever, to take whatever action is needed from that point of view;

it is reasonable that, given that your sister lived in a Council House, you inform the Council that she has died but after that it is up to the Council to identify who is responsible for clearing the house - even without any particular legal knowledge it would seem clear that as your sister has a living spouse (regardless of his current mental status) it cannot be your responsibility and attempting to take on that responsibility could lead to all sorts of adverse outcomes;

it is reasonable and 'kind' that you attempt to inform the son you know of from the first marriage of the current situation by writing to his last known address or phoning the last known telephone number or using whatever contact information you have but it is in no way your responsibility to go beyond this by trying to track him down if the first simple methods don't work. It is definitely not in any way your responsibility to try to track down other offspring of the first marriage who may or who may not exist and it would be quite impractical for you to do so unless you had significant financial resources to devote to this issue i.e. unless you could employ someone with expertise in this field to attempt to track them down even if it were your responsibility which it is not;

once you've attempted to contact the son and told the Council and clearly the people looking after your sister's husband already know, then actually there is really nothing more you can do? It might in fact be best to return any paperwork to the house which you've already removed from it? The Council will have to deal with it and will have procedures for doing so as such situations will arise quite frequently;

This isn't intended to sound miserable and negative. It is just that naturally - and it is an excellent thing - that you feel a responsibility towards your sister's affairs. You are also absolutely correct about this being a warning to all of us to make wills and have given thought to the situations which could arise if we die or become incapable whether it is sudden and unexpected or the long term inevitable result of age or illness. On the other hand adults make their own decisions in life both to do things and not to do things. Your sister married and hopefully this worked out well for her. She did not leave a will - many people don't - but that was her decision too. Unfortunately bereavement often brings out the worst in family members - even those who previously got on well (sometimes, of course, it brings out the best) and I've witnessed both sides of this coin. My concern is that the deeper your current involvement goes the more likely it is that sooner or later someone - maybe the son of the previous marriage, maybe other children from the previous marriage, maybe even the Council or some other agency representing the husband, are going to start complaining. It is hard but it could be time to step back, mourn your sister in private and leave the legal and public stuff to others?

[melonfool]

It's not the lack of will that is the problem - if I were married I would probably leave everything to my husband and make him executor.

Though there would probably at least be a back up executor, and she may have changed it when when he lost capacity I suppose.

The big problem is lack of anyone to act on behalf of the husband.

For those of us with no kids or spouse, I'm not sure what we are expected to write in our wills to cover this!

I expect the council will force the issue, they have huge legal teams and this won't be a unique situation for them.

Mel

[didds]

On a more general level...

If a couple in the OPs parents situation had no offsping or friends etc to handle this scenario... what wold the council be doing then?

Would they still charge rent on an unused house because nobody has the right or capability to empty it? When there maybe no money to pay it anyway?
Would "the coiuncil" in effect have to become the people to chase for permissions to empty the property etc?

Just seems a circle that cannot be squared.


didds

[didds]

sorry - that should be sister and her husband, rather than parents in the above post.

[Geoman]

Thank you for the responses. Especially to midnightcatprowl as you probably stopped us from taking things too far.

I am not local to my family so the final decision will rest with them but I think the sensible thing to do for now is: -

1) Advise the husbands social worker that there is no one willing to take on deputyship for the husband.

2) Advise the Council of sister's death and see what they have to say.

3) Write to the husband's estranged son (and maybe pass a last know address to the council).

4) Return everything to the house and see what developments there are.

[PinkDalek]

2) Advise the Council of sister's death and see what they have to say.

I don't think this changes your proposed course of action but, when the death was registered, do you know if the "Tell Us Once" service was used?:

https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/organi ... ll-us-once

Extract only:

Organisations Tell Us Once will contact

Tell Us Once will notify: ...

the local council - to cancel Housing Benefit, Council Tax Benefit, a Blue Badge, inform council housing services and remove the person from the electoral register

If so the Council may already be aware although, in our situation, the Council concerned were not in the scheme, even though in the same building as the Registrar, and we had to inform the Council regarding Council Tax separately.

[Geoman]

We've not been able to register the death as yet as the Coroner is involved. We should get an interim certificate soon but that isn't enough to register the death (AFAIK) so we are unable to use the tell us once service. That is the intention but it will take a few weeks to get the full death cert.

[PinkDalek]

We've not been able to register the death as yet as the Coroner is involved. We should get an interim certificate soon but that isn't enough to register the death (AFAIK) so we are unable to use the tell us once service. That is the intention but it will take a few weeks to get the full death cert.

I'd seen the reply from chas49 on your other thread, which suggested an "Interim Certificate as to the Fact Of Death" should be sufficient:

viewtopic.php?p=129928#p129928

Perhaps someone else will join this thread to confirm.

Edit: https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/when-a ... -a-coroner includes:

The death can’t be registered until after the inquest, but the coroner can give you an interim death certificate to prove the person is dead. You can use this to let organisations know of the death and apply for probate.