probate and executors resposibilty help?

brian01

in 2004 my brother died leaving both myself and my sister as joint executors and Beneficiaries of his will, we went to court and probate was granted the estate was valued at £212,000. the estate comprised of a house which was in need of renovation and a parcel of land at the rear, which a neighbour was disputing that we had access to as it is got to by a private road way.
we were offered by a purchasor to buy the house and not the land, so the house was sold for £100,000. did and this money was divided between my self and my sister. we declared our share to the inland revenue but i am not sure that my sister.
Since then my wife has had to read through old title deeds to the land to try to sort out what the neighbour was saying about the right of way to access the land, no exaggeration about 600 hours in total and eventually writting to the land registry to clear this up however the neighbour still insists that the right of way to the land does not excist dispite the land registry indemifing the right of the title, also after paying my sister her money we recieved further council tax bills for the house accountancy bills for my brother tax bills for my brother and electricity bills which all came in approximatly 18 months after his death dispite us writting to all asking if any monies were owed before any finacial divide.[/font]
since the money for the house was divided my sister subsiquently died and left her share to the land to my niece. we then applied for planning permission on the land and it was granted this fee was paid for by myself along with a planning consultant, the land is now up for sale for £200,000. but we are continually harassed by my nieces solicitor asking when the land will be sold and telling me that all the bills that i have had to pay out are after the division of the Initial money are my responsibility and can not come off the sale price of the land prior to this being divided up, which i feel is a little unfair. i have currently paid out about £13,000. i am also being told that my wife is not allowed to put in a bill for all the work that she has done. any help on this would be fantastic. sorry this is so long winded, but the whole thing is very complicated.

sloughflint

You've had no other replies so here are just my thoughts on your problem.

I don't quite understand where your niece's solicitor comes in all of this.
You and your sister were joint executors to your brother's estate. Your co-executor died so I'd have expected you to be sole executor of your brother's estate and therefore up to you whether to instruct a solicitor or not at any point you felt out of your depth.

[edit: afterthought: I'm guessing the solicitor is dealing with your sister's estate but is commenting on the handling of your brother's estate]

brian01 wrote: »

also after paying my sister her money we recieved further council tax bills for the house accountancy bills for my brother tax bills for my brother and electricity bills which all came in approximatly 18 months after his death dispite us writting to all asking if any monies were owed before any finacial divide.

These are your brother's or rather his estate's debts. The estate has not yet been fully distributed. It should be a matter of merely adjusting the amount awarded to your sister's estate once the land issue is sorted and money released,surely?

but we are continually harassed by my nieces solicitor asking when the land will be sold and telling me that all the bills that i have had to pay out are after the division of the Initial money are my responsibility and can not come off the sale price of the land prior to this being divided up

Does s/he really mean all bills ( see above)? Or just the PP side of things?

Since then my wife has had to read through old title deeds to the land to try to sort out what the neighbour was saying about the right of way to access the land, no exaggeration about 600 hours in total and eventually writting to the land registry to clear this up however the neighbour still insists that the right of way to the land does not excist dispite the land registry indemifing the right of the title

i am also being told that my wife is not allowed to put in a bill for all the work that she has done.

Who is saying this?
Would your niece rather you (your wife) give up on handling the probate and instruct a solicitor instead for the rest of the job?
She must surely appreciate that her share of inheritance ( and yours sadly) would have then been much less had you instructed a solicitor in the first place.

She might be prepared to come to a private agreement with you both on what would be a fair thing to do considering the time and effort your wife has gone to.Surely she must realise that each time her solicitor sends you a chasing letter, ultimately she'll be paying for them all. Far better to sort out easy things like costs between yourselves if at all possible

sloughflint

sloughflint wrote: »

Does s/he really mean all bills ( see above)? Or just the PP side of things?

You mentioned PP being granted in an old post when your sister was still alive and involved in the probate so surely it's not right or fair to expect you to foot the full bill.
I can't help but to save you repeating yourself and in the hope that some others can help, here are your old threads on the topic:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=1728630
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=8860029

brian01

thanks for the reply.
Just thought i would update as to what exactly the solicitor of my niece is saying.
they say that there client has instructed them that my wife has done some book work for the estate for which i intend to make a charge. they write to advise me that this is wholly unacceptable and as a non professional executory i am entitled only to recover reasonable expenses for certain items such as postage and i must not make charge for any work carried out by myself or my wife in the administration of the estate.

they also say that there client has told them that i have had certain building work carried out on the land and that payment has resulted in me being over drawn,although they are puzzelled as to what building work was carried out, it is wholly unacceptable that i charge for the work that i instructed to have carried out on the estate and that or any out of pocket expenses that paying for this work would cause me.

they go on to say that may they remind me of the oath that i swore when i took out the grant of probate.

" That i will (i)collect, get in and administer according to the law the real and perosnal estate of the said deceased; (ii) when required to do so by the court exhibit on oath in the court a full inventory of the said estate and when required render an account of the administration of the said estate to the court; and (iii) when required to do so by the high court deliver up the grant of probate to that court.

As an executor of the estate you are answerable to the high court and if necessary we will apply to the court for an order that you provide a full account of the administration of the Estate including all expenses deducted.

i paragraph 1 they accuse me of making charges to the estate for the work my wife has carried out, we have todate made no charge for this and have in fact saved the estate money. the right of way to this piece of land is very complicated and further complicated by the neighbour saying the right of way does not excist. my wife has had to go thourgh old title deeds on this land going back to 1885.

in paragraph 2 they discuss puzzleing building works carried out on the land that i instructed. this was due to a deed of easment that gave me two years to start back in 2006 to lay pipe work and drains to the land and cost me £3000. this work was arranged by my niece and carried out by her brother and is collegues. with out the deed of grant being in place the land would not be worth anything as drains and other services would not be able to reach the land.

i feel all i have done all i can with this estate is try to do the best i know for the estate and render it for sale and to get the very best price i can for it. but am continually getting letters of this ilk from my niece and her solicitors, i live some 200 miles from the land and my niece lives 8 miles away but they will do nothing to assist, i have had to take unpaid leave from work to sort problems with the land and feel i am being treated appaulingly.

sloughflint

I do sympathise with you, brian01. Your niece certainly appears to be causing you many difficulties in addition to the neighbour dispute.Again here are just my thoughts/suggestions:

• I firmly believe that your brother's debts that you mentioned should come out of the Estate and the fact that the proceeds from the sale of the house have already been distributed should not cloud this fact.I cannot understand why the solicitor would say this.
• I do hope that you have kept clear records of all the money you have paid out in dealing with the estate including receipts ( especially the work that your nephew did for you if your niece via her solicitor is claiming that 'puzzling' work has been carried out)
• I don't know where you legally stand with your wife's work in a non professional capacity. I know what would be fair though:mad: I would look into this further.
• Would it be easy to get proof that the work that your nephew completed ( and hopefully for him in his company accounts;)) was a) necessary b) enhanced the value of the estate?
• Do you have plenty of documentary evidence of the neighbour dispute and what was done to resolve it?
• Planning permission and costs. Your co-executor was still alive at the time. Do you have any record of her agreement/discussions/emails?Proof that this was essential.

Before you reply to the solicitor, you need to know some more.
I wonder if this website would be any use to get a basic FREE feel on where you stand with the 'non professional charges' aspect and maybe other points:
http://www.inheritancedisputes.co.uk/executors-disputes.php

Alternatively, if you are an executor and need guidance on your responsibilities or advice on how you can protect yourself from claims brought by beneficiaries, then we will be able to assist.

http://www.inheritancedisputes.co.uk/free-case-assessment.php

As part of the service from inheritancedisputes.co.uk we offer a free initial review of your case. So, if you would like us to consider the merits of your inheritance dispute, contested will or contentious probate claim then just contact us with the details and we will carry out an assessment completely free of charge.

There may be other companies ( I just googled) and with a few phone calls, you may get a better feel of where you stand.Beware of free though.
Good luck with this all.

localhero

Hi brian01,

Being an executor in a non-professional capacity is a thankless task, particularly where you find yourself in circumstances like this.

I think you have done very well in dealing with the probate and achieving a sale for the land which by far surpasses the original value of it, and so your niece should be grateful for the endeavours that you and your wife have put in.

The solicitors dealing with her mother's estate have a legal duty to maximise the estate. Unfortunately their approach seems a little hard-headed and unreasonable to me, and I think you will need to stand up to them.

Sloughflint rightly suggests that communication is key, and in an ideal world you and your niece could sit down and agree what she is owed, less all the planning costs - and you could all live happily ever after.

It might be worth reminding your niece that all the time you are responding to her lawyers is ultimately costing her money. Also if you choose to obtain representation yourself then that will also come out of her inheritance, as writing letters and getting into litigation is all at the expense of the estate, meaning that the real winners are the solicitors.

Sadly it will come out of yours too, so only consider this option if you feel out of your depth. If you have already tried to sort it out with the niece, don't allow yourself to be bullied by the solicitors, since you are the remaining executor of the first estate you are holding some trump cards.

Since you are a non-professional executor, sadly all of the hours that you and your wife have put in you can’t claim for, but all of the actual costs can be. I do hope you have kept all the receipts and invoices.

With regard to the bills that emerged after you distributed the proceeds of the house sale (ie from the accountant etc), what you should have done after obtaining probate is place an advert in the London Gazette and one other local or national newspaper. This advertises for creditors giving them a strict time limit to submit claims on the estate. After that time limit has expired you are safe to distribute the estate. It is perfectly understandable that you may have given your sister her share of the house sooner than you ought, but she should have agreed to indemnify you of any later claims.

It might be an idea to place an ad now for creditors, otherwise you will find yourself personally liable if any more emerge. Here's a link to a firm I use myself: www.legalads.co.uk/Trustee_Act/trustee_act.html

I would then send a letter to the niece's solicitors saying that you have advertised for creditors and in two months they will receive an up to date account of all the costs of the administration.

Furthermore your letter should go on to say, that the value of the land is now £200,000, but had you not incurred costs of £13,000 settling the dispute and obtaining planning permission, then the value would only have been £100,000 - the original probate value. Therefore unless their client only wishes to receive half of the lower amount (ie the probate value), then she should accept that these costs were wholly necessary. Further, had a professional been instructed to spend the same amount of time that your own family had put in at no cost to the estate, these costs would be considerably higher.

You should then itemise all of the costs, including the amount given to your niece to pay for some works (which she may have neglected to them about). Your letter could then finish by saying 'after the selling costs and the interim payment made to her mother have been deducted, you can expect a cheque of X amount in full and final settlement. Please be kind enough to confirm whether or not this acceptable.

Best wishes.

brian01

thank you for all the help and advice on this matter, i really feel that i have done everything i can to keep costs down on this, by trying to sort out the land registry and the neighbour.
We have all of the bills that we have had to pay out for the administration of the estate.
the building work that my niece's solicitors find extremly puzzleing, was actually done by my nieces brother for the sum of £3000. the reason for the building work was to comply with a deed of grant that would have expired on the 24th february 2008.
the deed of grant was to allow services to go over another neighbours piece of land so that when the builders build the houses they can conect to the main sewers, if the deed had been allowed to expire the land would have been worthless, and all the money spent on planning permmission would have been for nothing.
i would also point out that neither i or my wife have ever requested finacial reembursment for the work that we have carried out. but feel that we are being treated extremly badly by my niece and her solicitor.

Also how do we stand leagally if my niece and sister which we believe to be the case did not declare the money they have already recieved to the tax office for capital gains tax.
When the money was originally divided up for the house because my sister was ill with lung cancer we gave them a larger portion of the money £46,000 which was paid in two cheques at my sisters request one for £23,000 to my niece and 1 for £23,000 for my sister. when the solicitor whom sold the house for us sent the money over from the sale he sent us £83,000 the remainder paid his bills and so forth this is the only bill that we do not have dispite having requested a fully itemised breakdown of his time, but the solicitor totally ignores us.

sloughflint

Having read localhero's post, I hope that you are feeling much more comfortable about the situation.
One carefully worded letter to your niece's solicitor ought to sort matters.

The conveyancing solicitor should have sent you a bill. Simple enough to remedy by following the firm's complaints procedure.

If that is the only bill outstanding, I take it your nephew has given you an invoice for the work ( £3000) which your niece appears to be confused about.

So it appears that your sister ( or her estate) was entitled to £41 500 from the house sale rather than £46 000. You have overpaid by £4500 so this will need to allowed for along with the costs you've incurred.

Things don't seem quite so bleak.

I'm not sure about CGT in relation to inheritance and responsiilities for declaration ( executor or beneficiary). Did you have to pay CGT on your share?
Hopefully someone else will know about that side of things.

sloughflint

Just a quick aside.
In your letter to your niece's solicitor, it might be worth making quite clear now that you have already given your niece £23 000 prior to your sister's death at your sister's request.
I believe that this will be classed as a gift from your sister to your niece and depending on the size of your sister's estate could have IHT implications ( your sister's estate;not your brother's).
This is entirely separate from your dilemma as executor to your brother's Will.