Hi everyone, Full disclosure, inheritance law is not my strong suit. In fact. I know virtually nothing about it. (Sad but true) Anyway, my story focuses on a very wealthy family in London which consists of a father and x3 children. Two of the children are still legal minors and the third son is now 21. In the story, after the eldest sons 21st birthday his father discusses his will and that he plans to leave his entire estate/wealth to his eldest son on the grounds he oversees his younger siblings and takes care of them. Its a bit of family honour/tradition. *Im aware his brother/sister could contest this in the future* His father signs it in the presence of my MC * the eldest sons* his uncle and two cousins. What happens next is that his father is murdered and my MC is implicated as the murderer. Obviously given this fact I assume the wealth could no longer be passed to him? It would go to a trustee until his brother turns 18? I had planned for this to be his eldest cousin but I'm unsure if his cousin would even be able to touch the money at all? Even illegally? *he's not a nice guy* or if the trustee would have to be his uncle instead? Then my Mc realises that his dear old cousin killed his dad for the fortunate, so he marries a girl hes in love with to try and stop his cousin from becoming the trustee of his two siblings, before he is imprisoned for murder. I could continue on with the story but this is the only part that's relevant to the question. I just have no idea how 'legally possible all of this is?' Could the MC's father request in his will who the trustee would be if something was to happen to my MC? Thanks in advance.
This is pretty complex and it has been a LONG time since I did family law, but my first question is, when you say MC is 'implicated as the murderer', does he actually get convicted? If yes, the will is forfeit and so intestacy rules will apply, requiring a trust to be set up for the benefit of the minor children as you say. I am 99% sure there need to be a minimum of two trustees for a bereaved minors trust. The trustees are typically the executors of the will. In such a scenario as you describe, I'd expect the MC to be one and the cousin could be another, and then since the MC is out of the running someone else would need to be brought on board. Trustees have the power to invest or and to apply capital for the benefit of the beneficiaries of the trust (the underage kids), so yes they would be able to touch it, but doing anything not wholly in the interest of the beneficiaries would be illegal. Bear in mind that the court would be involved in the appointment of guardianship (which is not necessarily the same as trusteeship) and would likely not look favorably on the new wife of their Dad's convicted murderer. (If he is not convicted, ignore everything I said above.)
Thanks for the reply! Yes he is convicted for the murder and sentenced but its later overturned due to new evidence. (Basically he's set up by his cousins so they can get him out of the will without killing him.) I did some more digging after posting this and you're right, they wouldn't let his new wife be a trustee but he does still marry her and leaves her in charge of the buisness and the minors in her care. Later in the book the cousin realizes that the MC been reinstated in the will and tries to murder him and his wife. But the plan falls through and he's imprisoned after the attempt.
What year is this? I'm better at the historical stuff, being ever-so-educated by my early 20th century and Victorian reading. Here's my tuppence: Is the estate entailed? If so, it has to go to the next male heir, first in line being the eldest son. If he's out of the picture, because you can't benefit from an inheritance that comes to you via a crime, the estate would devolve on the next son, assuming at least one of the younger children is male, and a trusteeship would be set up for him until he is of age. The next heir would be the youngest brother, if any. Then, if I remember right, the estate would go to the dead father's brothers, starting with the eldest, then the eldest son of the eldest brother, which brings it to the evil cousin. In that case, there would be two or more relatives ahead of the cousin for the entail, unless the younger kids are both girls, the cousin's father has died, and he has no paternal uncles. But you say the uncle is alive to witness the will. You'd have to get rid of him to make his plan work. (By the way, it's the usual thing for witnesses to a will not to be major beneficiaries. You'd get the housekeeper and the chief gardener to do it, or the confidential secretary and the lawyer's clerk, not Sonny and the nephews. Otherwise it can be argued that the beneficiaries had an undue influence on how the will was drawn up.) Note that with a entail, money settled on the younger children would come from investments and properties that were not part of the estate itself. But it sounds like the testator had the right to dispose of his funds as he wished. I'm thinking that if the family is that traditionally wealthy, they'd have a faithful solicitor who would draw up the will to provide for every contingency (excepting, perhaps, murder). It's doubtful the father would leave the bulk of his estate to the eldest on the condition that he take care of the younger siblings, rather he'd be leaving it to him because he's the eldest. It's also doubtful that he'd make no mention of the younger kids in his will; that indeed would leave it wide open to be contested and proved invalid. No, he'd put the requirement to take care of the teenagers into the testament, not leave it to "family honor." Moreover, he wouldn't leave the appointing of a guardian for his minor children to chance, such that the evil cousin would come around to the court volunteering for the job. That is, if he's sensible and the solicitor is any good. Maybe your father character isn't? Maybe he's an optimistic idiot who would exact a verbal promise from the major heir to "take care of your brothers and sisters," and then the heir doesn't (C.f. Jane Austen's Sense and Sensibility)? Though that doesn't sound like something your MC would do . . . and the evil cousin wouldn't be under the same commitment. But let's say he's a prudent father who has done the "right" thing and funded trusts for his minor children and designated his adult son and his eldest nephew as their joint trustees and guardians. In that case the cousin would commit the murder knowing he is one of the trustees of the next heirs. So when the MC is convicted of his father's murder, it's rotten luck because the cousin is already their guardian under the will and is supposed to administer the estate for their benefit until they come of age. (Once the MC is relieved of his trusteeship, can you arrange for the court-appointed second trustee to be useless, or under the sway of the cousin?) As far as the overall plot goes, you can leave it with the cousin planning to siphon off the minors' money for his own benefit. But it's so much more exciting if the MC is racing to prove his innocence and the evil cousin's guilt before the evil cousin offs the teenagers before they can fully inherit. (Note that until 1 January 1970, the age of majority in the UK was 21). The challenge you'll have is keeping your guy out of prison long enough to do this. Maybe he's out, pending appeal? Maybe he escapes custody and comes back in disguise? His sweetheart can help him, but if she does most of the work, she becomes the MC. If you want a chilling account of how inheritance intrigue can work in fiction, read Uncle Silas by Sheridan Le Fanu. Dorothy L. Sayers' Strong Poison is also great for showing how a trusteeship can be abused.
