Am I due to inherit anything

[judithcat]

Please help.
My mother and father owned a large property. I have heard rumours that they were tenants in common and that me and my brother and sister were beneficiaries. My mother died in 1986. My father remarried to someone 25 years younger than him and had two more children. My father has recently died, and as far as I know has left everything to his second wife and his two younger children.
I have two questions (a) would we know if we were beneficiiaries of my mother and she had left her half of the house to us, after my father died. Is there a charge of something on the house?
(b) If there is nothing due to us, are we likely to be successful if we contest the will?
Thanks

[factor-fiction]

Did your mum and dad live in Scotland as that can make a difference (Scottish law)?

[themas]

Ethel - "If there is not the wording under their names that is under the names of your father and mother, they own it as joint tenants".

I'm not sure what you mean by this. What judith quotes is a tenancy in common restriction with the same date as the registration of the father and the second wife as proprietors. This seems to me to mean they owned as tenants in common.

I don't know whether title documents normally show past ownerships but judith doesn't quote anything about them, so presumably nothing is shown.

It is interesting that the registration date is in 2002, when judith's mother died in 1986. I wonder what happened in the meantime. Perhaps it was just registered to the father? Also the fact that it is a tenancy in common (if I am right about that) is interesting - perhaps the father didn't necessarily intend his second wife to have everything, but it could also be an IHT thing.