How did Violet leave such a large estate ?

[emilypos]

Very recently I discovered spinster Violet REDDING,  my 1st cousin , 1 gen removed, left over 100,000 pounds when she d 23 August 1990.  As far as I know she lived all her life in Berkhamstead. In the 1939 Register she's listed as a domestic, living with her mother.  Am really curious as to how she acquired so much money ? . She left it all to one unrelated person who in turn died in 2000

Any ideas

Bye
EmilyP  NSW Australia

[Ruskie]

A spinster, working all her life and living with her mother could easily have accumulated that kind of money over a lifetime. She may even have inherited some of it from her mother. The £100,000 must not have included property, as any property in Berkhamstead would be worth more than £100,000.

Pure speculation though. Do you have contact with any of her family who may be able to shed some light on this?

Added: I just re-read and noted that the date of death was 1990 so perhaps that money did include some property, as house prices would have been lower then.

[PrawnCocktail]

If she lived in a council house, she could have bought it, and it wouldn't have even cost her much. Council houses were sold off to tenants at a reduced cost from 1980, under the "Right to Buy" scheme

[rosie99]

The property mentioned on probate sold for £156,000 10 years later (2000)   The website with this information does not give earlier dates

[rosie99]

Violet appears to have lived in the same house from being a child to the beginning of the war.  Before WW1 these properties could be owned by private landlords and would not necessarily have come under the governments right to buy scheme in the 1980's. 

I see Violets mother died in 1940, I wonder if Viloet stayed in the family home after her mothers death. The properties she was living in do not look (to me) like local authority housing but I could be wrong.  There are similar properties to their early house in the village where I live that were owned by a private company, most of them were sold off when the elderly tenants died.

[ShaunJ]

The probate value was £115k. Using the Nationwide House Price Calculator, an increase in property value from £115k to £156k between 1990 and 2000 would be exactly in line with expectation.

http://www.nationwide.co.uk/about/house-price-index/house-price-calculator

[emilypos]

Many thanks for all the replies. Sorry I should have included   26, Queens Road  Berkhamstead as Violets address when she died.  I guess I must be just out of the equation on the cost of housing in the UK  !  Pretty sure   were no council houses in this street . There certainly were in the nearby Durrants estate and I think there were some ex Army structures ( Nissen huts ?)early 1950's around Victoria Road/ Swingate Lane areas.

I grew up in Berkhamstead but had no knowledge of this cousin till years later. She was only child of my grandfathers younger brother. When I lived in Berkhamsted I had no real idea of a gfather yet alone one having one older brother who migrated to Canada c1880 and 2 younger ones. Gfather died when I was a baby and only had a vague notion of him till I got hooked on family history in 1990 ,( the year Violet died)
Aside from a sister who is still a UK resident with no interest in family history, Violets only rellies would have been me , a 2nd gen cousin in Hemel  and the Canadian cousins .  Thats sad ..........


Bye


EmilyP

[rosie99]

If Violet had owned the property it is likely that she did not pay a lot for it. Before the early 1970's you would probably have been able to buy a small semi-detached for less than 3 thousand pounds in that  area, then the property market took off.  That property in Berkhamstead sold 10 years ago for over £300,000.