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Hello, I am Law Denning and I am a practising solicitor in a HighStreet practice. I have been an expert on this website in UK law since 2008.During that time, as you appreciate, I have answered thousands of questionsfrom satisfied users on a variety of subjects.Because we are all in practice with clients and court and otherusers, I might not always respond inminutes, particularly evenings and weekends. Please bear with me in thatcaseIt is my pleasure to try and assist you with this today. Please bear with mewhile I gather some further information from you in order for me to be able to advise you fully.
Can you explain your situation a bit more?
Hello, my name is Beth Rees.
My brother and I are find ourselves in a situation where we had been informed all of our lives that we would receive our deceased fathers share from our grandparents.
My grandfather passed in '97 and wrote in his will that we were pecuniary legacy beneficiaries of an amount to be held in trust (£5000) until we were 25 yrs of age. I believe the paragraph that I submitted was in his will also, but cannot confirm as we have never received a copy of this will.
We have only seen the beneficiaries page, submitted by our uncles, who were the nominated executors.
My grandmother recently passed and had written two wills of her own, one in 2005 which supposedly is a direct copy of my grandfathers (it contains this paragraph) and another in 2009 where the paragraph is no longer present, but the beneficiary amounts have been changed to percentages - leaving my brother and I 11% and my uncles 78% (the other is 11% to her daughter, which was my grandfathers step daughter, who he left only £5000).
My uncles have already submitted my grandmothers will for probate and we have only just been provided the information of changes and contents of any of the wills.
My grandmother suffered with mental problems nearly all of her life (these are medically recorded) and I do not believe she fully understood the changes made in 2009. She didn't understand the breakdown of her phone bills and certainly wasn't aware of the value of her property.
My uncles informed me the changes made in 2009 were because my grandmother realised that if she went into a home, that they could be left very little money. However my uncles had looked after my grandmothers finances for years prior to 2009 and would have informed her of this, as she would not have known.
I appreciate I am not supplying the full will and testaments (we do not have these ourselves) but I am trying to understand if in the former wills if our grandparents had left our fathers share to us (despite the money left in trust - which we have never received and are both over 25yrs of age).
I appreciate your review and opinion in this matter and understand you are also busy with other engagements, so any help you can provide is gratefully received.
Let megive you a simple answer and see whether that answers the question.
Ignorethe relationships for a minute.
Ifsomeone is left something in a will (either residue or pecuniary or specific)and they die before the person who wrote the will (the testator) dying and the deceased parentleaves a child or children (issue), then regardless of what it says in the will in respectof the clause you have quoted, the children get the deceased parents share.
UNLESSs33 of the Wills Act is excluded anywhere in the will. If section 33 isexcluded in specific wording saying just that, then the deceased parents shareis not passed to their children.
Thereason for putting in the phrase that you quote is simply to provide certaintyfor people who do not know how section 33 of the Wills act works. In many circumstances,it does not actually need to be there, as a pre-deceased beneficiaries childreninherit under section 33.
Doesthat answer the question?