I’m confused…isn’t the whole point of a will to be a public record? How can it remain “private” for 90 years?
For example, my will states which family members inherit which bits of my massive fortune. Now, that sure ain’t much interest to the general public, but it surely is of interest to a few public and semi-public agencies (such as the government registrar of property deeds, my bank, the tax authorities, etc.)
If I somehow declare that my will remains private for a century after my death, well, a whole bunch of people are gonna be confused: My family will be wondering who gets to live in my house. And the tax man is gonna want to know to whom they send the bill for the property taxes on the house, or why somebody in my family suddenly has more money than he did before, but ain’t paying any income tax on it.
Now, I’m gonna make a wild-ass guess that his royal highness Prince Philip owned a little more property than me, and had a few more bank accounts than me.
What happens to all that stuff? Couldn’t a competent journalist figure it out, by looking a property deeds, and following changes to the royal family’s routines?
“Private” doesn’t necessarily mean the heirs don’t know what’s in it or that deeds can’t be changed. This article has a few more details but it appears that “private” merely means that the will will not be available to the public and a copy will not be kept in the court file- but probate will be granted and his estate distributed.
Well, his wife is the Queen - not all common law applies to royals (they not being common). I of course have no actual knowledge of what royal prerogative’s might apply.
Why should anyone other than the beneficiaries see the detail of his will. Any such interest is purely prurient and there is no reason why you or I should be privy to the details.
The will is the responsibility of the executor, not the responsibility of the ‘few public and semi-public agencies’, nor of the legatees, nor of the public.
The executor may have an interest in making the terms known to the legatees and some non legatees, to avoid dispute. And depending on the jurisdiction, there may be a process by which that is done, but publication is a side affect, not a purpose.
I wonder about that. She certainly has a huge amount of stuff. I expect he has some also, though. Over the seven decades they were married, surely he received some expensive gifts as well as she did?
I don’t know how it works in the UK, but in the US, wills are private documents unless they go to probate. It’s private, not secret. The parties to the will know what’s in it. Other parties only know what those parties choose to disclose.
And there is much that you need to disclose. If you continue living in the home and don’t pay tax or notify the county of the property transfer, eventually the county will resolve the confusion by evicting you and keeping it for themselves. Again, “private” doesn’t mean “secret”.
An awful lot isn’t their private property but relates to the institution and is considered to be held in trust. I’m not entirely on top of how the boundaries between “Crown” and “personal/private” are established and maintained, but there’s a variety of officials and agencies involved in administering them.
Maybe that’s the whole point? Keeping the details private means we can but wonder about things and possibly have some impressive expectations; putting the facts out there could mean we see that his will includes a quick “if my daughter spends a night in the spooky old mansion, she gets the entirety of my estate: sixpence and this ‘Thunderball’ paperback.”
Yes, much of the real estate, jewelry, art and antiques are owned by “the crown”, but she does own quite a bit on her own. I believe when her uncle abdicated, her father bought Sandringham and Balmoral from him, as they were private property. Some of the jewelry also is hers independent of the crown. It never occurred to me before, but I wonder how much and what he owned himself.
In the UK wills are also private unless they go to probate. Any will that involves property (that’s not jointly owned with someone still living) or “large estates” will go to probate. The example of a small estate given on this page is £5,000.
It’s extremely likely that Prince Phillip had significant property assets and other assets worth millions, not thousands. His family were exiled and some of them lived in genteel poverty, but he married a woman who was literally the richest woman in the UK for several decades (her wealth in 206 was estimated at £530million - personal wealth, not crown estates). It would be laughable to claim that he didn’t end up being gifted property by his wife (such as the “farmhouse” they usually lived in at Sandringham, which would probably sell for a million on the open market even without the royal connection), get gifted jewels and art and other items, have people to assist him in making wise banking decisions, etc. And all without ever having any living costs.
I mean, I’ve known people who’ve had to deal with probate as an executor - it’s not only for the very wealthy.
So usually his will would be open to the public for a small fee. Royals don’t usually have their wills made public as a matter of “tradition,” so this is actually following the norm for royals, but that’s a norm that says “treat them differently for no real reason.”
(Diana was no longer royal, so her will was public).
Why would his wife gift him property? What would be the purpose of a wife giving property to a husband when they essentially own stuff in common? So she gave him a house and then she inherited it when he died?
So that he had his own property in his own name. That would be important for a lot of people, but especially men born to rich families in the early part of the 20th century. Don’t think it’s that uncommon for a very wealthy person to gift their spouse property to own in their own right. Maybe it doesn’t happen for couples who hate each other and the rich one wants to keep the other on a leash, which doesn’t seem to have been the case here.
Doesn’t matter if she inherits it, and she might not have, anyway - depends on the terms of the will, which everyone posting here now will never know.
Also, you cut off a fair amount of my post there - there are many other ways he could have owned property. It’s one of the commonest investments for anyone with substantial wealth and there really is zero chance that Prince Phillip didn’t have substantial personal wealth (especially when the limit for probate is in the thousands).
If he weren’t royal, his will would be publicly available. Other jurisdictions vary, but that really is definitely the case in the UK.
I cut the other stuff our because I don’t dispute any of the other stuff. He certainly had plenty of opportunity to gain wealth on his own. That other point still makes no sense. If him owning the property was some sort of important thing, why would it have been kept secret?
I never said him owning the property was some important thing - it was just an example of one of the ways he could have accumulated wealth large enough to go to probate, if he weren’t a royal and exempt from probate by tradition.
The whole will is secret, not just details of any specific property he may have owned.
Not really sure where the point of your confusion lies, sorry.
Nitpick: He’s not exempt from probate; his will has in fact been admitted to probate. He just has exemption from publication of the will, which is the usual consequence of admission to probate.
A love child is possible but I can also think of lesser reasons why he’d want privacy. Does he give something to William but not Harry, or vice versa? Does one of the other grandchildren get something special? If the details were released, people would be speculating endlessly on why certain things were given to certain people.