I have a situation where a lady died intestate and her mother (who lacked capacity) was her sole beneficiary under the intestacy rules. Mother has now died. No Grant in daughters estate could be obtained as we needed a deputyship for mother and the family do not get on at all.
The mother has left a Will that appoints a firm of solicitors to be her Executor. They have said it would be “inappropriate” for them to act in the intestate daughters estate but I don’t see who else could take out the grant. The siblings of the intestate are not entitled to share in her estate, only the mother was. Can anyone assist?
If the mother was the sole beneficiary of the daughter’s estate, under NCPR her executors would be the persons entitled to a grant to the daughter’s estate.
Any third party obtaining a grant in the daughter’s estate would need to account to the mother’s executors, and it would seem an unnecessary duplication of costs and effort would arise as the executors would need to be satisfied they have received the mother’s full entitlement.
I suggest the mother’s executors be asked to explain the basis on which they consider it would be inappropriate for them to act in the daughter’s estate. That the mother and family did not get on well would not seem an adequate reason in itself.
Since the mother’s estate, of which they are Executor, is entitled to the daughter’s entire estate, I don’t see why the solicitors consider it “inappropriate” for them to take out a Grant in the daughter’s estate as the mother’s LPR.
The solicitors named as the mother’s executors are in a difficult situation: if they are going to act at all in the mother’s estate their duty extends to getting in all its assets – which must include the daughter’s estate. No-one else will do their job for them. Their one alternative course of action is to renounce the executorship of the mother’s Will ( - if they want to) . In that case the person or persons beneficially entitled under the mother’s Will can act instead, and presumably can be appointed administrator’s of the daughter’s estate.