Kilts, compost and Mills & Boon

Daniel Pepper, Legacy Management Lead at RNIB, remembers some of the more ‘interesting’ legacy cases which have come across his desk. And, on a more serious note, he talks about the importance of good communication between charities and solicitors.

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I’ve now been at RNIB for 10 years and worked for two other charities prior to that. We have a great team here, with more than 80 years’ experience between us, and everyone loves what they do.

Before going into the charity sector, I spent 14 years in a civil and criminal Wills and Probate team in private practice and you very quickly realise people think they won’t get caught.

We had one case where an individual left a large proportion of his Will to charity and a smaller amount to friends, specifying that particular family members should not benefit at all.

Those family members purported to have found a codicil which instead left the larger amount to them and the smaller amount to charity. The way it had been written was in ‘Dickensian’ English – they had obviously read it somewhere – and when we challenged the validity of the codicil and threatened court proceedings they withdrew the claim.

Another individual who made contact with an elderly, sick relative after many years, asked to be mentioned in her Will. After she died and ahead of sending us her Will, the lady’s solicitor contacted us to explain the wording – she had indeed named the individual in her Will, but she hadn’t left him any money, she had simply granted his wish to be mentioned.

Kilts

Some legacies make us smile. There was an elderly Scottish lady whose Will requested very specific funeral arrangements – no women to attend, the pall bearers to be muscular and wear kilts, and there must be a piper.

Another time, I was invited to the funeral of a lady who had left her estate to the RNIB. She lived in a little village where everyone knew her and she had never married or had a family.

Often, we don’t find out the story behind these legacies, but we discovered that her father lost his sight after being the victim of a mustard gas attack in World War One. After he was evacuated, he was helped by a charity that was a forerunner of RNIB and he asked his daughter to remember the support he had been given – she remembered us in her Will because of the impact of her father’s words.

I drove home afterwards buzzing about how everyone had taken her to their hearts and how they all wanted to say goodbye to her.

Saying thank you

I think it is a basic thing to honour a person’s wishes and say thank you to their family and friends.

At a previous charity, every year we used to publish the name of those who had left us a legacy. One day, I had a call from a family member who said his uncle had left money to us and how lovely it was to see his name remembered.

Sometimes things happen that are upsetting for a family. In one case, a mother had left £10,000 to her five favourite charities and the son had set up an executor account for the monies to be processed. When he sent the cheques to each of the charities, two of them (including ours) bounced for no reason and the son was so upset he was nearly in tears.

He told me ‘you cannot understand the joy and pleasure I have had in writing those cheques to my mum’s favourite charities – I imagined mum sitting there writing them too’. We re-presented the cheques and it was fine, but I felt so upset for the family about how it was handled.

On other occasions there are more difficult legacy cases. We had one where a husband made a claim after he was left out of his late wife’s Will. More than one charity was involved and, due to the special circumstances, together we all agreed to settle the claim, after which the solicitor wrote and extended his thanks to the charities for our sensitivity.

Communication and training

Having been in private practice I have seen both sides of the legacy coin and I know that good communication is key on both sides.

For example, if a solicitor is waiting for HMRC or a property sale has been delayed, then it is good practice to let the charity know so it can update its files.

When it comes to things like IHT calculations, I like to think that legacy professionals could be parachuted into any private client law department and would understand just as much as the lawyers. Because they are dealing with issues around IHT all the time, legacy officers know exactly what to look for, and solicitors will usually be genuinely pleased to have that expertise available.

I would like to see more training about how to identify fraud and for legacy officers to realise they should not be reluctant to raise flags and ask questions. It can be something as simple as a missing page from the estate accounts, we picked up one fraudulent case due to checking a payment in the accounts.

No-one should be scared about chasing money that rightfully belongs to their charity – it is our duty to maximise the value of the estate and honour the legator’s wishes.

Books and compost

Summing up, two cases in particular spring to mind. In private practice in the late 1980s, I had helped a lady to write her Will and, when she died, her nephew asked me to go to the house and check her books.

She had a whole wall of Mills and Boon books and, when I moved some, money started falling out – £21,000 in total – her nephew knew about the money, she just wouldn’t trust the banks. The police had to collect it in evidence bags.

However, I think the most unusual legacy gift was the gentleman who left three compost heaps to three friends – we never knew why, perhaps they all belonged to a gardening club…

You just never know what weird things probate cases will throw up – and you can’t ask the individual because they are no longer there.