Education Update - Comment August 2008

Published: 21st August 2008

Maximising income from legacies

Over the next few months we shall consider how you ensure that you preserve any legacy you are left under a Will whether it be a specific lump sum, specific item or a share in the residuary estate. We will identify how legacies can be eroded or lost altogether through claims against the estate whether contesting the validity of the Will, claims for provision for dependants out of the estate or otherwise. We will also consider how the maladministration of estates can affect the legacy you will receive.

However before we look at preserving an interest in an estate by defending actions against the estate or questioning the administration of the estate we should first examine your need to establish your rights to a legacy in the first place.

With a well administered estate the executors (or their solicitors) will write to you to confirm you are a beneficiary under an estate, informing you of the size and nature of any legacy and a likely timescale for distribution. Unfortunately not all estates are well administered and the growth in executors deciding not to obtain legal assistance has led to a growth in estates being poorly administered.

At a simple level this can lead to a delay in you being informed that you are entitled to a legacy and further delay in receiving any payment but in some cases it can lead to the legacy not being paid at all.

This fundamental difficulty can be overcome by the use of a search and notification organisation which searches every single Will probated within the England, Wales and Scotland and any organisation that subscribes to their service will be informed of every legacy they are entitled to and be provided with a precis of the Will of the deceased.

This ensures that you are aware of every legacy you have been left and enables you to take the first step to ensure that you receive every legacy to which you are entitled. The following are examples of the benefits for clients that our team have been involved in:

• On numerous occasions organisations have been informed by a search and notification organisation that they are entitled to a legacy even though the organisation had not heard from the executors. This information allowed the client to chase the executors to administer the estate promptly ensuring they received the legacy within a reasonable time frame.
• On one occasion a charity had been left a legacy of £25,000 but the executor had paid the sum to the incorrect charity. Without the report the client and the executor would never have known that our client was the correct beneficiary. However because they had the report they could approach the executor to ensure the legacy was correctly paid.
• On another occasion an executor was not aware that the charity would find out about its legacy and decided to keep the legacy for himself. The charity became aware of the legacy via a report and after a member of our team became involved the legacy was recovered with interest.

We would recommend that any organisation which is likely to receive legacies under a Will should consider using the services of a search and notification organisation so that they do not miss out on legacies they are entitled to.

If you would like to know more about such services or how you can protect any legacy your organisation is entitled to please do not hesitate to contact Mace & Jones.