Solicitor slow over probate

djohn2002uk

Why don't you take the flat off the market untill the whole thing is finalised. It will then be solely part of your inheritance for you to do as you wish with and with no connection to that dammed solicitor.

sloughflint

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

Husband is drafting complaint letter to firm. I looked into complaints, and spoke to someone at the Legal Complaints Service:
http://www.legalcomplaints.org.uk/home.page

Very helpful, I can complain myself, but they can only bring in their full powers for the solicitor's client - husband is their client as he is joint executor. I can complain but all they can do is try make the so and so speed up. Wish I'd done that 6 months ago now, but husband was against it back then. (he likes a quiet life! :rolleyes: )

Did you make them aware that it isn't just a timescale issue? There is the interest on IHT aspect and the incorrect IHT form ( edit see last part of next post) and of course trying to force the conveyancing side on you, not allowing access to paperwork.
However until you know why the IHT wasn't paid within the non interest period, you can't exactly complain about this aspect.

Your husband's reaction was normal. People don't know how long processes take. It took me a while before I realised that the solicitor wasn't doing anything.I just assumed things were ticking along.

Do try to keep things in writing. Of course they are not stupid and will never admit liability in writing but it would be good if they wrote a summary of items discussed during a meeting between your husband and the client care partner. ( you shouldn't pay for that)

I would want to get my hands on all the paperwork and get an idea of dates ( letters to and from banks, payments from banks etc). That should give you a fair idea of what work has been done. It's easy to blame third parties for delays.

sloughflint

I don't want to get your hopes up with the releasing of the funds to help with your debt. It could be that once the IHT was paid, there is little liquid cash floating around without the sale of the property.
You can get a rough idea now. Your father passed his estate to your mother and no IHT due between spouses.Your mother's IHT allowance was £600 000. Anything over will be taxed at 40%.You know the value of the property.

You have every right to ask what has been done to date and how much is being held within the firm.
The reason I wanted the funds distributed to the beneficiary was because the firm was paying a very low interest rate. Maybe you could use the same argument at least to access some of the available money?

In any event, I would say your husband should not be paying any more insurance payments. That should come out of the Estate, ie the solicitor's firm should be paying them.

Edit:
I have a little niggle/afterthought here.

Is your husband confident that he made the firm aware that the property had insurance that needed paying?

Also I'm not entirely sure if payments after death would go on the IHT form thinking about it. IHT has to be paid before probate granted and a property can be sold so insurance would carry on.
Certainly the insurance should be paid out of the estate but not sure now if solicitor has incorrectly completed the IHT form after all. I am guessing here. Perhaps an initial IHT form is completed and then at the end when the estate can be fully settled HMRC is notified and IHT readjustments made? Or the IHT position is purely on assets at date of death ( which should at least include some of the insurance payments up to death -May to September)?
A little more research needed before complaining, I think.

You should be able to get a quick idea on the IHT position by calling the IHT and probate helpline.
( link to contact details on line 4:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cto/customerguide/page1.htm )

sloughflint

I am not condoning the solicitor's behaviour but you say there was a complication with your father's estate. Remember that your mother's estate could not be calculated until your father's estate was finalised. This could account for some of the delay maybe?

I do urge you to cross check everything the solicitor states. I said above that I have found several to make mistakes and here is a thread that may apply as you are selling property:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=13655839

ukmaggie45

djohn2002uk wrote: »

Why don't you take the flat off the market untill the whole thing is finalised. It will then be solely part of your inheritance for you to do as you wish with and with no connection to that dammed solicitor.

We had a buyer who then withdrew, but agent took someone round yesterday and is hopeful (aren't they always! ) that they may make an offer. The flat is in a spectacular spot, but needs work doing on it (probably re-wiring, new bathroom, at least new kitchen worktops, and built in oven don't work, though hob is new).

While there's a chance of a sale still we'll leave it I think, we have signed up for 6 months anyway. Believe it or not, I actually trust the agent! :cheesy: Of course, time will tell if that's misplaced or not!

Thanks for the idea anyway - all ideas gratefully accepted!

ukmaggie45

sloughflint wrote: »

Did you make them aware that it isn't just a timescale issue? There is the interest on IHT aspect and the incorrect IHT form ( edit see last part of next post) and of course trying to force the conveyancing side on you, not allowing access to paperwork.

Actually I don't think I did at the time - it was more of a brief information trawl, and I didn't want to go into too much detail at the time. Would have taken a bit long to have collected all the times, dates etc, those will go on the complaints form when we come to send it off. Think we might begin work on that, but we're away
from tomorrow evening until Tuesday for my 60th birthday for a family party on Sunday.

After looking at their website it seemed to me that the easiest thing to ask about as a beneficiary (husband is the client) as it definitely mentions taking a long time over probate as something a beneficiary can complain of themself.

sloughflint wrote: »

However until you know why the IHT wasn't paid within the non interest period, you can't exactly complain about this aspect.

It was then we started trying to find out what was going on.

sloughflint wrote: »

Your husband's reaction was normal. People don't know how long processes take. It took me a while before I realised that the solicitor wasn't doing anything.I just assumed things were ticking along.

Precisely!

sloughflint wrote: »

Do try to keep things in writing. Of course they are not stupid and will never admit liability in writing but it would be good if they wrote a summary of items discussed during a meeting between your husband and the client care partner. ( you shouldn't pay for that)

I would want to get my hands on all the paperwork and get an idea of dates ( letters to and from banks, payments from banks etc). That should give you a fair idea of what work has been done. It's easy to blame third parties for delays.

We've tried to make detailed notes as soon as possible after all contact with the firm. We have copies of letters, and copies of all the forms husband signed.

We began keeping what we call "the big book" when my father went into nursing home, which was when Mum's dementia began to be obvious - numerous phone calls etc. Everything was such a nightmare at the time, nobody appeared to believe us about how bizarrely she was behaving etc, so we wanted to keep our own record.

It just seemed natural to keep it going still when Mum was admitted to hospital, nursing home, hospital again. So we have notes on meetings with solicitor from the very start. (as well as how useless hospital was and so on, but we're out of time to complain about that now)

Will take another look at your next post now.

ukmaggie45

sloughflint wrote: »

I don't want to get your hopes up with the releasing of the funds to help with your debt. It could be that once the IHT was paid, there is little liquid cash floating around without the sale of the property.
You can get a rough idea now. Your father passed his estate to your mother and no IHT due between spouses.Your mother's IHT allowance was £600 000. Anything over will be taxed at 40%.You know the value of the property.

A lot of Dad's estate was equities, and Mum had some too. But I think that there should be enough to pay the beneficiaries before the flat is sold. Will have to do some serious homework on the figures that we have.

I'm afraid Mum died before the date for getting IHT for both of them, so IHT is due on anything over £300,000, or possible 320,000, must check the figures again! Anyway, I think the IHT was on approx 300,000, so IHT would be in the region of 120.000... So interest on that is going to add up somewhat even over just 4-5 months.

sloughflint wrote: »

have every right to ask what has been done to date and how much is being held within the firm.
The reason I wanted the funds distributed to the beneficiary was because the firm was paying a very low interest rate. Maybe you could use the same argument at least to access some of the available money?

In any event, I would say your husband should not be paying any more insurance payments. That should come out of the Estate, ie the solicitor's firm should be paying them.

He told us that the money was in a high interest account - that would be my Dad's available money I guess. Have to check on what that was given as being on the probate forms for his will.

sloughflint wrote: »

Edit:
I have a little niggle/afterthought here.

Is your husband confident that he made the firm aware that the property had insurance that needed paying?

I'm sure he tried to, but the chap just kind of pooh-poohed it the way he seems to do a lot. I kept on trying to find out about getting my Mum's jewellery valued, but he didn't seem to think it was needed. Then all of sudden he wanted the valuation. I felt it would have been better if he'd let us know sooner, as we then felt that things were being held up by not having it, and it took forever, or felt like it!;)

Meetings I've been to with him haven't exactly increased my confidence. Last one we tried to get some information on Mum's estate from him, but he spent the whole meeting telling us all he'd done on my Father's estate (all of which we knew already) and husband didn't even notice until we'd been ushered out. Too late then!

sloughflint wrote: »

Also I'm not entirely sure if payments after death would go on the IHT form thinking about it. IHT has to be paid before probate granted and a property can be sold so insurance would carry on.
Certainly the insurance should be paid out of the estate but not sure now if solicitor has incorrectly completed the IHT form after all. I am guessing here. Perhaps an initial IHT form is completed and then at the end when the estate can be fully settled HMRC is notified and IHT readjustments made? Or the IHT position is purely on assets at date of death ( which should at least include some of the insurance payments up to death -May to September)?
A little more research needed before complaining, I think.

Yes, these are the kinds of questions we are thinking about. Will have to go through all the papers and build a time-line.

sloughflint wrote: »

You should be able to get a quick idea on the IHT position by calling the IHT and probate helpline.
( link to contact details on line 4:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/cto/customerguide/page1.htm )

I think husband is going to try and contact them today if he can find the time. It can be difficult to do that in work, depends partly on how busy they are on a given day!

Thank you for giving this so much thought - it helps crystallize our ideas as to what we should be asking, and who we should be asking. :T

ukmaggie45

sloughflint wrote: »

I am not condoning the solicitor's behaviour but you say there was a complication with your father's estate. Remember that your mother's estate could not be calculated until your father's estate was finalised. This could account for some of the delay maybe?

I'm sure it accounted for some of the delay (we had a postal strike around here at the time as well just to complicate matters further! :rolleyes:). The bank said it didn't have any of Dad's equities for safe keeping. But when I went through his papers I found a receipt from the bank for just that. So then they looked a bit harder and found them. :j So what with the post and then the bank mess up, that slowed things down a bit.

There were also some old life insurance certificates, and it took a while to trace them all. But it seems to us that he didn't get on with anything else while waiting for something he'd done to be responded to. If you see what I mean! But it was all done within the 6 months.

I don't understand why he couldn't at least begin work on Mum's estate even while the final details on Dad's were pending. Things like valuations which I mentioned in my last post. Guess he must have thought me Mum's jewellery was of no value.

Also apart from the income tax issue (see below) Mum's estate was fairly straightforward so far as I understand. Guess that when we finally get to see the paperwork we'll find out.

sloughflint wrote: »

I do urge you to cross check everything the solicitor states. I said above that I have found several to make mistakes and here is a thread that may apply as you are selling property:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=13655839

Thanks for that. I think I recall him saying that we'd have to pay more IHT if we sold the flat and it went for more than the estimate given for probate. Will need to check "the big book"!

I will be contacting my parents' accountant soon, as will need tax advice myself I think. Which reminds me I've got a tax form to fill in!

Another mess up was it was damn near impossible to get my mother's tax return (forget for which year even now!) and he wasn't very helpful to the accountant.
We had to pay a fine for late payment, but the accountant managed to get that back! :j

I can't believe we left it all so long before beginning to press this bloke. It's not just me that all of this is affecting. Both my daughters and husband have been left a considerable sum of money, and I think it's time they received it.

Thanks for your thoughts. Will be going through this thread with husband this evening.

Errata

Hope this helps. If a complaint is made about an executor to the Probate Office it can remove that executor if it considers the executor is not acting properly. I would guess the P O would take any misbehaviour by a solicitor executing an estate extremely serious indeed. In a way the Probate Office acts as the estate's 'best friend'

sloughflint

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

I'm afraid Mum died before the date for getting IHT for both of them, so IHT is due on anything over £300,000, or possible 320,000, must check the figures again! Anyway, I think the IHT was on approx 300,000, so IHT would be in the region of 120.000... So interest on that is going to add up somewhat even over just 4-5 months.



He told us that the money was in a high interest account - that would be my Dad's available money I guess. Have to check on what that was given as being on the probate forms for his will.

That was very unfortunate timing with the IHT.
The threshold that financial year was £ 300 000.

Not quite sure how to read your 'high interest account bit'. Just to clarify: your father's accounts would have needed to have been closed. The funds would then have been transferred over to the solicitor.His idea of a high interest account may not be your idea.

ukmaggie45 wrote: »

I don't understand why he couldn't at least begin work on Mum's estate even while the final details on Dad's were pending.

No reason at all. What I meant was he couldn't apply for probate ( IHT form etc) until he knew the size of your mother's estate which in turn would have needed to include the precise size of your father's estate once known.

Remember, regardless of the IHT uncertainty, he should have accounted for the May to September insurance already paid by your husband.THere is no doubt that those formed part of the estate's debts. He has clearly failed there to accurately measure the debts and complete the IHT form. It's the remaining payments I'm not so sure about as mentioned before.That helpline number is excellent.

You'll get there.You're clearly organised with notes. It's time to be assertive with this guy and not get ushered out of the room.:mad:
Yes you'll be charged for his time but should be able to claim it back.
Best of luck.