Legal situation in death

Not sure if this is the forum for this, but here goes. My father died in Dec 09. He had been co-habiting with the same women for 20 years (not my mother). He had invested a lot of money into the property, although it was in her name. He had paid more than equal share of bills etc.
Unfortunately she did not see fit to take any responsibility for burying him and has cut off all communication with us. She has no children and it has become apparent that she has a serious drink problem. She has become hostile and abusive to us and made it very difficult to claim our fathers belongings, which she threatened to burn. We have left much of his property at the house, only taking personal affects.
Could anyone help in respect of where we stand legally with this?
Thanks

I am sorry for your loss. I don't know about the legal side of this but suggest you contact the Citizen's Advice Bureau.

I am assuming your father died without leaving a Will and that he is divorced from your mother?

Thank your for your reply. Yes, he was divorced from my mother, who has passed away and no, he did not leave a will unfortunately.

Again, sorry to hear of your loss. Never an easy matter to lose a parent.

If there is no will, then the property of a deceased person falls to be divided according to the rules of intestacy, and if the deceased was a widower, then the persons next in line to inherit would be surviving children.

In pure theory, then, the likelihood is that your father's possessions belong to you and should be returned to you. On the face of it, it does not look as though the OW will co-operate.

The difficulty is that the costs of legal proceedings may be disproportionate to the value of the property. Also, the property in question may have considerable sentimental value which may not be reflected in any damages.

Are you in a position to itemise what possessions you want ? It is very easy and probably not too expensive for you to send a solicitor's letter asking the OW to make an appointment, perhaps with a neutral observer present, to collect your father's possessions, but as you know, Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. She may destroy them or claim that your father gave them to her, and that sort of thing. In which case, if you pursue it, the stage is set for a very messy confrontation.

The other issue is whether you are asking whether your late father had any interest in the house by virtue of his contributions. Not knowing anything about the circumstances or the contributions, it is impossible to advise you, save to say that my gut feeling is that such a claim would be likely to fail, but this is not my line. For advice like this you would have to consult an expert in property law. For the record, the leading case, to my knowledge, is Lloyds Bank PLC v Rosset,
1990 1 All ER 1111. You may not have considered this as a possibility, but at least it does no harm to ask, if you are seeking legal advice anyway. You would have to demonstrate an intention to share ownership and that your father acted on that assumption to his detriment. I think there would have to be clear evidence that your father made the contributions in the expectation that he would have a share in the property. At this stage this will not be at all easy to prove.

I must stress, this is not my field of expertise and you MUST take legal advice from someone qualified to give it. Furthermore, this is not a matter for a CAB. Take my word for it, they will just refer you to a solicitor.

LMM

It could be that this women has been advised that there may be a claim against her partner's estate under the Inheritance Act which would certainly worry me.

If there is no prospect of a claim and this is only about personal belongings it is worth a personal letter explaining that in this time of grief it would be desireable to attend the property to remove any items that were of sentimental value to you and your father.

Charles