Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Florida
challenging inheritence from UK
We live in the UK and have recently found out (by default) that our father who was domicile in Florida passed away over 3 years ago (we had been estranged for some years). Our stepmother never informed us and we are completely shocked. We have no idea what his wishes were at the time of his death. We have contacted the county record office and no will was recorded or went through probate. They were quite wealthy. On reading other �postings�, a possible scenario may be that a trust was set up in order to avoid a will going through probate etc? My stepmother works in finance so she would be familiar with routes to channel the estate. We have now discovered that a will exists here in the UK leaving my fathers estate to his children, albeit dated some 20 years ago but it was never cancelled. However, it would appear that much of the estate that was left to us in the will at that time has been disposed of. I do not think that our stepmother was aware of this will here in the UK. We have not spoken to her yet, as we would not believe a word she had to say anyway! We would be grateful for any advice on where we can go from here. Thank you very much for taking the time to read this, I appreciate this is a long question!
2 Answers from Attorneys
Re: challenging inheritence from UK
The 20 year old will is still valid if it was the last will that your father executed and it can be probated if it meets the Florida requirements for a valid will.
As for the assets, your success in recovering any of them will depend on many factors including the way in which they were titled, what sort of assets were involved, and the actual terms of the will. For instance, if the will disposes of most of the assets through a residuary clause and they were owned jointly or by the entireties with your stepmother, then they automatically passed to her at your father's death. But, if the will makes specific devises to certain people and the assets were only titled in your father's name, then the property that probably passed to your stepmother under intestacy may be reclaimed (e.g. declared to be in constructive trust) by the purported beneficiaries, although the assets may have disappeared by now.
Re: challenging inheritence from UK
Certainly an interesting situation. After 20 years I also doubt the assets were there on his death. In any event a letter by an attorney should have been written to the wife for information about the estate. If necessary, the old will can be submitted for probate. That will bring out all the relatives since they must be served with process. Good luck.
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