You have no need to worry about this as both yourself and your Sister have received legitimate gifts that were intended and made entirely from your Mother's income, you have also respected her wishes to keep the gifts private. As long as that was your Mother's wish then there is absolutely nothing the step-father could do to expect or demand the return of the said gifts.

If step-father starts making slanderous allegations of theft or wrong doing then without the necessary evidence of which the burden of proof rests firmly on him to produce, it would become malicious slander where you could sue him personally for defamation of your otherwise good character(s)... you may wish to remind him of that fact preferably in writing sent recorded delivery, before he starts slinging any further accusations without having the concrete evidence in place to reinforce any claim he makes, or further exposes himself to any such liability. !

My mother sadly passed away recently without leaving a will. She remarried after my dad passed away many years ago and I do not see eye to eye with my step father. I know I am not entitled to any of her estate as it is virtually nothing as she owned no property nor had any money in the bank.

Over the last few years she has given both myself and my sister cash from her own state pension that she asked us to keep secret between ourselves and our side of the family. It was given openly as a gift split equally between myself and my sister to do with as we pleased. It is a reasonable sum of money (around 20k) and this has built up over about 5 years or so. Basically my step father ran the home with her giving him a set amount per week toward it, also she gave up smoking a number of years ago which saved her a fortune hence she had spare cash.

Now my step father and his family are sorting out her affairs as he is her next of kin they want to know what she did with her money and knowing them as I do they are going to want it back. In my opinion we have done nothing wrong and the money is a gift that we all knew about and they have no entitlement to it. She was of sound mind and body up until was she taken ill and after that point we have received no money whatsoever.

Where do we stand as he is accusing people of robbing him and I'm worried he'll try to take the matter further.