ITC Legal Services - Avoid Them

kiwimum

If only we had found this forum 10 months ago ! We live in New Zealand and in October last year my grandfather passed away and we went back to help mum. Grandad was a barclays customer and when we went into close his accounts they referred us to ITC legal and said that they were their recomended partner. As we all banked with barclays and my partner worked for them for 13 years we thought thats good ... saves us time sourcing someone to help and as we only had two weeks in the country and a baby with us we needed to know everything was sorted for mum when we went home to NZ. The flat fee seemed great too. ITC sent a guy round to the house to meet us and explain the process and have to admit he was very convincing he was an ex police officer (so had that implied trust thing about dealing with him) and said that if we did it ourselves and got something wrong it can take years to sort a probate case out. Their flat fee and the fact that they said mum would be appointed a case officer to deal with so one point of contact who would know our case all seemed great. I got all grandads paperwork together and accounts and spent 3 days ringing round and tracing all the companies his polices and savings were with and advised them of his death and did a spreadsheet of all the info and collated all the forms they sent us which we passed onto ITC so they had a head start. The sales guy who came out convinced us that it was best to have mum as the nominated contact ..... little did we know that this meant that once we left the country ITC call staff would refuse to speak to us as we weren't the nominated contact!! Everything they promised hasn't happenned and to make things even more stressful dad has since passed away so mum is on her own and is at her wits end with them ... they kept contacting her for paperwork already sent and then said that they hadn't received stuff she had sent them by recorded delivery. We had arranged that they would sell grandad's house (big mistake) they asked us for a value which we guessed at 80-100k it was put on the market at 75k and after months hounding them to see what was happenning we got an offer of 58k! from a developer a couple of days after we had questionned why there had been no viewings !! ... mum just wanted rid but we convinced her to tell them to say no to the 58k and say we would settle at 62k then she/we heard nothing for three weeks ... then our solicitor contacted us (as we have 1/2 share of house) and said that they had heard that offer had been accepted at 58k when we called mum she had heard nothing from ITC and was still waiting for a response on the 62k so turns out they accepted the offer without even consulting us!!!!! All in all its a big mess and mum is not well at all and every time she rings them they say 'its all in hand' but no timeline and no what is left to do etc etc .... after finding this forum we have just spent 3 hours trying to get through to someone at ITC to no avail we them rang barclays legal helpline as we still have accounts with them and they managed to transfer us as calling 0844 numbers from NZ was eating our phone card up in seconds. My partner spoke to someone in ITC tonight who 'listened' but when we asked who the case manager was she said she would check in the system and then said errmmmm that would be me !!!!!! so she didn't even know or non was assigned soooo frustrating my partner was trying to be nice and said mum was ill and could she help us get things moved along but i just wanted to grab the phone and be tougher with them as think they were fobbing him off :-( as as far as we are aware everything has been done but when he asked if she could help she just said she would highlight the case and they would do what they could!!! but she re iterated that my partner wasn't the nominated contact so there wasn't much she could tell us about the case. Mum is over it and has enough problems and doesn't need the pressure of having to try and chase them but really concerned that it could take another year and financially that will ruin us all. Any advice would be helpful .... do you think a letter would work is the same guy still CEO or maybe a letter to someone in PR at Barclays as it really isn't doing them any favours being linked with these sharks. Sorry for the mammoth download but not sure how we get them to move forward and finalise everything.

Cerredwen

Hi Kiwimum, I'm experiencing similar problems with ITC, and a year down the line the end is still not in sight.

I'd just like to say thank you to Portland Boy and others on this forum who at times such as these, appear as a life-line to victims of this most unscrupulous bunch of scoundrels.

My experience of ITC thus far is that they do not act unless you stay on their case. It appears to me that they are fairly quick to retrieve all monies from the estate, but then employ delay tactics in order to hold the money in their trust funds for as long as possible, whilst simultaneously finding any excuse to crank up their less than transparent charges. Excuses such as letters not received; Probate period not ended; Geoffrey Parker Bourne holding up proceedings (when in fact, the solicitor hasn't even got you on file) are used extensively and interchangeably.

I have found the call centre operatives to be either a) Polite but unknowledgeable, or b) Rude or aggressive and unknowledgeable. My advice would be to phone them again, preparing beforehand a list of points you wish to complain about because they have a tendency to try and throw you off-track. Remain at all times polite but firm, and when you are fobbed off by the operative (which you will be) demand to speak to someone in authority, making sure that you tell them you wish to complain.

They will then pass you off to someone who claims to be your case manager, who knows nothing about your case but will promise to phone you back. You will get a call back, and some of the things you have asked to be dealt with will then proceed to be dealt with.

Feeling somewhat satisified that something is finally moving you can then sit back and relax for a few weeks. However rest assured that ITC will be also be sitting back and relaxing... ie nothing further will get done. You will become anxious and phone the call centre again only to be told 'things are happening in the back ground'. However they will not be able to tell you exactly what is happening in the background because nothing actually is: they're just sitting there holding tight to your money, or squandering it away.

You will then have to go through the whole firm-but-polite complaint process again with yet another assigned case manager, but at least it should move things forward just a teeny bit more. Oh yes, and don't phone more than once a week because they get very cross and tell you that they will refuse to speak to you if you do it again.

As for Martin Trees, he is a very difficult man to get hold of and any letter you send won't get to him. He's too busy with his friends, the other directors, holed away in the Directors' Board Room counting up his ill gotten gains and no doubt sniggering at the gullibility of you, I and countless other victims of this sinister company.

portlandboy

Kiwimum,
There was another post on this thread from someone in either NZ or Australia, in similar curcumstances to yours. I have had a quick browse through the thread but can't see it at the moment. If I come across it I will re-post it for you. It might be worth trying to find it and sending a private message to the poster. You may be able to get some especially interesting advice from them.
I only wish there was a way to highlight the way in which ITC do business BEFORE people sign themselves up, but at the moment there isn't.
The order of the day is clearly to get your mum to allow you access to deal with ITC directly. She only has to tell them that she wants you to deal with things and they have to let you do so.
Sadly it is quite likely to be another 6 months or more before ITC decide to finish messing you around, but when they do, given the fact that they may have had a case of suspected fraud recently, you should check and re-check every last number on the statement of accounts...then complain until you are satisfied with the bill.

portlandboy

Has anyone else noticed the number of posts on this thread that have been marked as "edited" or "deleted" by MSE? The reason reads as "pending investigation".
Now, I realise that many of the posts being investigated are in fact my own but, as I have been asked to supply evidence of the claims made in the "offending posts, I now don't know what the posts actually said!
Would anyone care to remind me?:D

John_Pierpoint

I make it a dozen, half of then yours

Being a thorough executor is a thankless task - I have asked a government funded organisation to supply me with information (and paid for it) and it has taken 3 months to get a reply. [This is in addition to the current situation with income tax at HMRC
http://www.ftadviser.com/FTAdviser/Regulation/News/article/20110801/7cf9f056-bc12-11e0-a527-00144f2af8e8/Inquiry-finds-serious-dissatisfaction-with-HMRC.jsp ]

I mention this in no way to excuse unacceptable lack of communication and obvious poor administration (eg having a case manager that differs by the phone call) but by way of warning that many organisations have a total lack of proper procedures for the 2,000 deaths per working day in the UK.

It is the classic 80/20 rule situation, when 80 percent of the estate has been finalised only 20 percent of the effort needed has been expended.

Even with a well organised specialist in probate matters, there will be situations that delay the finalisation of the estate. However these delays should be discussed with the executor and he/she should keep the beneficiaries on side. There is nothing to prevent interim payments to the beneficiaries - in fact paying out specific financial bequests in the first 12 months avoids claims for interest on the eventual payout.

John

PS There are some sites that take snapshots of the web and store them for posterity (I saw Dom Littlewood use one such on the telly to prove that a financial organisation was telling "porkies" about their terms and conditions on the day that an aggrieved punter entered into a contract with) I'm sorry I cannot provide the details, but just might be able to find a "back up" of your entries before they were censored.

Deep_Throat

You need to ask your mum to call or preferably write to ITC authorising them to speak to you as what they call the "Primary Contact".Once this is done and in place you will have direct access for the information you require.

Deep_Throat

Have you tried; 07785 333742?

batman321

I too have the misfortune of having these dealing with my mothers will.
My mothers will was very simple - she wished everything to be divided equally between her three children, she had two bank accounts and she didn't own any property.
None of us has had to deal with probate before, straight after mum died we set to work and informed EVERYBODY that needed to be informed of her death. In other words, everything other than actually apply for the grant of probate had been already done by us. Mum was in credit with her utility bills and didn't owe anybody anything.
When we informed the banks of mums death, one bank immediately closed her account and sent us out a cheque, the other bank (which I won't name) told us "it has to go to probate I will make an appointment for you" they then picked up the phone and made the appointment there and then. It seemed to us this appointment was with someone who works with this bank, someone who would be giving us sound financial advice. We were not told that we had any choice in the matter, such as, being able to do it ourselves or using solicitors etc.
When ITC guy turned up he told us that it usually takes 6-9 months but that it would probably be much sooner than that as mum's will was "very simple and straight forward"
Eight months on and nothing.... everytime I ring I get to speak to a different case manager, last time I called, I asked what was taking so long? seeing as how we had already notified everybody before they even started this case and that we had given them all of the reply letters as proof for their records? I was told they were still no nearer and it was taking so long because they had to check to see if mum had written any other wills and they had to also check to see if there are any other siblings they don't know about.

Will keep you posted.

portlandboy

batman321 wrote: »

When we informed the banks of mums death, one bank immediately closed her account and sent us out a cheque, the other bank (which I won't name) told us "it has to go to probate I will make an appointment for you" they then picked up the phone and made the appointment there and then.

I don't think you need to name the bank...

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/1970115

I think we can guess.
I wonder just where ITC think that they might find another will? In a box under her bed? If the will is produced, that is the be all and end all. It clearly states 3 siblings and there are 3 siblings. What a poor excuse, even by ITC's standards. I think that previous advice applies here - just keep on and on to them (using the freephone number, of course, not the one they ask you to use). Demand action from supervisors and call the number in the post above yours. It is a very useful contact. Tell him how you are being treated and see what he has to say. Maybe post his reply on here for all to read.
Please keep us all informed of any "progress", thanks.

fikhan

I am buying a house and the probate was given to ITC who also insisted my sellers would have to use their conveyance or pay an extra £250, after 3 weeks of trying to get them to send the draft contracts to my solicitors, the estate agents convinced the vendors to use a different conveyance company. We are now ready to exchange but no sign of the probate certificate from ITC, the agent has tried calling and emailing them but they are totally useless.