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Originally Posted by andy 1
so in other words the so called step children have no rights in law when the so called step father dies,
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No
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Originally Posted by andy 1
ie (they can't legally step in and take charge of the funeral
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Well anyone can organise and pay for a funeral, but it would probably be desirable to get these expenses back from the estate.
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Originally Posted by andy 1
or the estate of the deceased)there is no last will and testament by the way.
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With no will (or even with a will) someone has to be appointed as exector of the estate. Normally a will will specify who that is, in this case someone needs to propose to be executor and the court will need to approve that.
They will then need to follow the rules of intestacy
http://www.ethicalinvestors.co.uk/te.../intestacy.htm
is a nice predictor of how the cake is cut.
Spouse
Children (adopted, but not step)
Parents
Brothers and Sisters
Grandparents
Aunts / Uncles
all get claims. If none of these exist, then Queenie gets the lot. If the estate is over £250k then Mr. Brown will take 40% of the bit above 250k and queenie gets the balance.
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Originally Posted by andy 1
and the childrens mother left the so called stepfather about 12 years ago.
oh and by the way the so called step children are now grown up with children of there own
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Seems the step children are a legal irrelivance, the parents (seems unlikly since the children are grown up), grandparent (less likely), brothers (
are you one) and sisters and aunts and uncles are the interested parties in this estate.
EDIT
He was married? You say left - do you mean left or divorced?
Spouse gets personal effects, first £200,00 0 (1) plus half the balance. Rest shared between surviving brothers and sisters or their issue (2). If your estate is worth more than £700,00 0 (3) IHT will be payable.
Still the step children are entitled to nothing.
As there was no will, I don't think a deed of variation can be executed (there is no document to vary) so intestacy rules apply. Life insurance policies are not normally paid to the estate but to the benefactors, so are not part of the estate for IHT, property held as tenants in common (not joint tenants) will automatically (ish) pass to the surviving tenant.