Published on 12, July, 2020
I wonder if anyone knows a specialist legal advisor who can help with a very specific issue or where to find one ?
My sister had a fairly normal situation. Became full time carer of autistic child.. Her parent contributed some badly needed money all the time. Left money within will when died. Stepparent wants her money. Many complexities result which could fill a page. . One in particular is uncommon. Apparently poverty can be claimed by carer but where caring for a child would make life more expensive (holidays, home security, eating T shirts daily, suchlike challenges) it is said this this extra cannot be taken into account. This is apparently the law under section 2 of the 1975 act or at least that is alleged.
I suspect there are a very people who have the detailed knowledge to immediately recognise this issue and know what to argue against this. Find them is proving hard. I wonder if anyone has any ideas based on experience with this issue?
Also as a warning, if you are helping out a child with carer challenges, do make sure your will is fortified beyond all normal lengths you might want to go so.
If there is enough money involved that the bank will require a grant of probate to release it then I would apply for that via a local probate lawyer/ solicitor rather than doing it yourselves. But some banks don’t if there is less than 50k so be wary of who has access to the death certificate if there is a risk of it being withdrawn and spent before the situation is resolved. You can discuss all the issues with the lawyer first, maybe at the firm that wrote and held the will? The probate office can be extremely particular about the will and they also have a massive backlog at the moment. They put my application on hold for 6 weeks (after it took 10 weeks to get to the top of the pile) because my uncle hadn’t written mine and my brother’s middle names on the will. I’m sure I don’t know all the details from your post but it may come down to whether the will was written before or after the step parent married into the family. Or whether the money was left to your sister or the child themself. Money left to children comes with all sorts of conditions, often that it can’t be accessed until they’re 18. I think the other thing to look at as someone else has mentioned is why your sister is struggling so much for money, is she claiming all the benefits she’s entitled to etc This could take weeks or months to resolve, a large chunk of my late uncle’s money wasn’t paid to me until 7-8 months after he died and all was straight forward
If there is enough money involved that the bank will require a grant of probate to release it then I would apply for that via a local probate lawyer/ solicitor rather than doing it yourselves. But some banks don’t if there is less than 50k so be wary of who has access to the death certificate if there is a risk of it being withdrawn and spent before the situation is resolved. You can discuss all the issues with the lawyer first, maybe at the firm that wrote and held the will? The probate office can be extremely particular about the will and they also have a massive backlog at the moment. They put my application on hold for 6 weeks (after it took 10 weeks to get to the top of the pile) because my uncle hadn’t written mine and my brother’s middle names on the will. I’m sure I don’t know all the details from your post but it may come down to whether the will was written before or after the step parent married into the family or if the money is in a joint account with them. Or whether the money was left to your sister or the child themself. Money left to children comes with all sorts of conditions, often that it can’t be accessed until they’re 18. I think the other thing to look at as someone else has mentioned is why your sister is struggling so much for money, is she claiming all the benefits she’s entitled to etc This could take weeks or months to resolve, a large chunk of my late uncle’s money wasn’t paid to me until 7-8 months after he died and all was straight forward
TLDR: ask the solicitor who wrote the will for advice if you haven’t already and make sure all possible benefits are being claimed in the meantime