ITC Legal Services - Avoid Them

wired_biker

Oh dear, looks like my hopes of a lucky escape have gone.

Just had a bill for £680, or I can ask them to resume working for me.

They will only return the deeds once my cheque has cleared.

John_Pierpoint

They have read this and noticed there is a house at stake?

Even if you cannot pay their bill they could put a legal charge on the house.

There is big money in the death business, these people tend to work on commission.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZir7e0Cj24

When my mother died it cost us beneficiaries and executors (brother and sister) about £100 to fill in a form and have it put into our names, but that was nearly 10 years ago. I think there might be a computer system in the way now. Phone the land registry and ask them. Don't assume that the help line person knows what they are talking about. We were told "you need a solicitor" until we disputed the point. I hope your mum is still compos mentis - perhaps you should be getting Lasting Power of Attorney as she is to become a property owner? That is not cheap and easy even if you do it yourself. (High learning curve or rising bills it is your choice).

If the family members do not live with their mum, you might want to consider an instrument of variation perhaps to give her a life interest rather than outright ownership - it is not as though she can take it with her.

We then sold the house, but we wanted to demonstrate to any potential purchaser (and the tax man) that there were no outstanding IHT issues and to draw a line in the sand for CGT purposes; just a nice quick exchange and complete in less than a month.

gem2010

My mother appointed ITC in April this year to do the probate for her fathers's estate. She was recommended them by a bereavement organisation and as she didn't know where to start, is full time carer for my dad who had a massive stroke last year and can't read, write or talk and is recovering herself from a hip replacement she decided that using them would take all the stress out of it. How wrong could she be. She is now so stressed and worried that she can't even bring herself to ring them for fear of hearing the same old lines, the most favourite being ''your case worker is off sick''. She has sought legal advice from a reliable and competent solicitor who she obviously now wishes she had used to begin with, he has advised her the resolution of my grandfathers estate should have taken no more than 3 months. She is the only beneficiary and it is straightforward. The mistakes made by ITC are too many to mention. Over two weeks ago she sent a letter to them highlighting their errors and voicing her complaints, no reply. However they managed to write to her to offer her an interim payment of her own money (for which they charge !). She doesn't want an interim payment she wants it all, it's hers and everything is done ! This company are a joke and i am seriously worried that she will never see a penny of her inheritance. Can anyone provide some reassurance that this will eventually be resolved ???

angrygirlie

gem2010 wrote: »

My mother appointed ITC in April this year to do the probate for her fathers's estate. She was recommended them by a bereavement organisation and as she didn't know where to start, is full time carer for my dad who had a massive stroke last year and can't read, write or talk and is recovering herself from a hip replacement she decided that using them would take all the stress out of it. How wrong could she be. She is now so stressed and worried that she can't even bring herself to ring them for fear of hearing the same old lines, the most favourite being ''your case worker is off sick''. She has sought legal advice from a reliable and competent solicitor who she obviously now wishes she had used to begin with, he has advised her the resolution of my grandfathers estate should have taken no more than 3 months. She is the only beneficiary and it is straightforward. The mistakes made by ITC are too many to mention. Over two weeks ago she sent a letter to them highlighting their errors and voicing her complaints, no reply. However they managed to write to her to offer her an interim payment of her own money (for which they charge !). She doesn't want an interim payment she wants it all, it's hers and everything is done ! This company are a joke and i am seriously worried that she will never see a penny of her inheritance. Can anyone provide some reassurance that this will eventually be resolved ???

Hello gem 2010,

So sorry to hear what your poor mum is going through at a time of grief, to deal with your dad's health and her recovery from surgery. VULNERABLE is not enough to describe your mum's situation. ITC should be ashamed of themselves.
I suggest that you mum gets 4 copies of her original letter, write another letter to say that she is still awaiting a response and that she demands a response addressing her issues within 10 days and send 1 copy FOA the Customer Relations Manager, and 1 copy FAO each of the directors (who are named on the ITC website)
Martin Trees (chief executive)
Grant McKerron (chairman)
Charles Urquhart (Business Development (Partnerships)
Send all 4 'signed for ' so you can track that they have been delivered.
If the response surpasses the 10 days, (I know this is a stress and a pain to do all of this, believe me I've been there) phone daily a couple of times a day
Charles Urquharts phone number is advertised on their website on the Corporate partnerships tab.

It is also worth mentioning in her letter that the service she has received is not living up to ITC's claims according to the website (Trading Standards)

You can also find some interesting claims on ITC's website.
My personal favourite is .....
At ITC, we are committed to providing the type of service we'd like our own family members to receive.
Well, thank goodness I'm not related as I'd denounce myself and run away to to the otherside of the world.

portlandboy

wired_biker wrote: »

Then, a letter came asking me for £1500 upfront, as they could see that there were limited liquid funds!

I haven't had the funeral bill yet, but I'm guessing around the 2.5K mark, leaving £5000, and that's not enough!!!

I'm going to apply for probate myself, any advice welcome!

wired biker, clearly you are in two minds as to what to do, but I think that your above comments should be a signal to yourself. ITC are absolutely incompetent and, even if they do charge you £680 (a figure that I would question anyway) for the "work" they have done so far, it is likely to be a bargain to pay up and do the job yourself.

If ITC want money from you, they MUST give you an itemised bill accounting for the work they have done up to the date that you told them to stop. Given that they have to obtain the grant of probate (which costs, I believe, £90) BEFORE they are legally allowed to call in the assets of the estate, and given that it takes, in ITC's own words, 6 to 9 months to obtain the grant, what else can they have done to charge you nearly £700???

Isn't it a bit odd that ITC are "not proud" of the cases on this page, yet they are not too proud to grab your money, knowing that you are going to tell everyone what they are doing?

I would tell them to stop and await further instructions from you. Yes, you can tell them to continue at a later date, but I would look into the cost of a trusted local solicitor before you make any rash decisions here. If you feel that you can't do the job yourself and a solicitor is the way to go, that solicitor will deal with getting the deeds from ITC and back to you as part of the job. (Remember ITC ARE NOT SOLICITORS AND ARE NOT REGULATED by any official body.

I am sure that all the posts on here are a warning to you that ITC are trouble and always have been. They may not be proud but they really don't give a damn about the customer.

Think carefully,
Regards

portlandboy

angrygirlie wrote: »

Hello gem 2010,

So sorry to hear what your poor mum is going through at a time of grief, to deal with your dad's health and her recovery from surgery. VULNERABLE is not enough to describe your mum's situation. ITC should be ashamed of themselves.
I suggest that you mum gets 4 copies of her original letter, write another letter to say that she is still awaiting a response and that she demands a response addressing her issues within 10 days and send 1 copy FOA the Customer Relations Manager, and 1 copy FAO each of the directors (who are named on the ITC website)
Martin Trees (chief executive)
Grant McKerron (chairman)
Charles Urquhart (Business Development (Partnerships)
Send all 4 'signed for ' so you can track that they have been delivered.
If the response surpasses the 10 days, (I know this is a stress and a pain to do all of this, believe me I've been there) phone daily a couple of times a day
Charles Urquharts phone number is advertised on their website on the Corporate partnerships tab.

It is also worth mentioning in her letter that the service she has received is not living up to ITC's claims according to the website (Trading Standards)

You can also find some interesting claims on ITC's website.
My personal favourite is .....
At ITC, we are committed to providing the type of service we'd like our own family members to receive.
Well, thank goodness I'm not related as I'd denounce myself and run away to to the otherside of the world.

Likewise. All good advice here. I also have a useful phone number if you would like it. Just send me a private message or look at the Facebook page - ITC Legal Services Ripped Me Off. I've just posted it there too.
Regards,

wired_biker

Thanks for your message, in their bill they have broken it down as follows:

Set up fee £250
Professional fee £250
Vat £100

Third party fee - Land Registry £80

I am thinking of ringing them and agreeing to the set up and vat on that. Asking for proof for what they paid to the land registry and if I'd get copies of whatever they paid for. But I cannot see what the 'professional ' fee is for, and I really object to paying it. It seems to be a 'we want your bill to be bigger so we are making it up - fee'

gem2010

Thank you for the replies. Another disapointing aspect of this is Barclays. Both myself and my parents are lifelong customers but their association with ITC has me seriously considering changing banks although having said that my mother has found problems with a number of the banks in trying to sort out some of her dad's affairs. Is there not one financial institution that have properly trained, compassionate and understanding staff to deal properly with probate issues ? I Will keep the forum updated with our progress if there is any to report !

portlandboy

wired_biker wrote: »

Thanks for your message, in their bill they have broken it down as follows:

Set up fee £250
Professional fee £250
Vat £100

Third party fee - Land Registry £80

I am thinking of ringing them and agreeing to the set up and vat on that. Asking for proof for what they paid to the land registry and if I'd get copies of whatever they paid for. But I cannot see what the 'professional ' fee is for, and I really object to paying it. It seems to be a 'we want your bill to be bigger so we are making it up - fee'

Maybe that is the way to approach this. I guess that they have set up a case and given you a case number, so some charge is possible for that, (although I didn't have a "Set-up Fee" charged on my account).
Of the posts on here that have listed the charges, none mention a "set-up fee".

Post #47 shows:
As you will all understand we were very apprehensive about this - but here are the costs - AT THAT POINT OF CANCELLATION WE WERE AT START OF STAGE 3 (ie just before ITC applying for grant of probate....it took over 4 months to get to that point and we could see from many of these posts that we had to get out of the contract)

Funeral costs paid by them
Land registry - £50.00
ITC power of attorney fee - £138
public and legal notices - £169.57

PLUS - standard terms & conditions - £250 plus VAT for 40 letters written to all interested parties (ie banks, insurance etc)

Post #61 shows:
Power of Attorney fee inc Vat
£138.00
DWP Investigation fee inc Vat
£117.50
Directors Signature fee inc Vat
£58.75
Taxation Review Charge inc Solicitors Disbursements and Vat
£172.50
Beneficiary fee inc Vat
£705.00
Asset fee inc Vat
£164.50
Itc Professional Charges
£1868.36
Vat on Professional Charges
£282.59
Retention For Conveyancing and Land Registry Charges
£500
Total
£4,007,20


Post #66 (my own) shows:
A fixed fee 1.5% (which should have been about £1800)
+ Disbursements
+ Director's signature fee
+ Probate application fee
+ Conveyancing fees for property
+ Legal & public noices charge
+ Probate application swearing fee
+ ITC taxation review charge
+ ITC power of attorney fee
and then
+ ITC "PROFFESIONAL" charges (and this is almost a trading standards complaint in itself, because they're deffinitely NOT proffesional in the slightest)
+ VAT
My grand total= £3800

So I would question that charge for sure. It seems that they have charged you almost the same as the bill in #47 (about £700), which is odd considering that #47 was at "stage 3" of ITC's work and was for 4 months on the case! As you say, the charges seem to be "we want a bigger bill so we will charge you more".
Generally the total charges seem to be around £4000 for the probate "service" that ITC perform, so it is very likely that getting out now will still be cheaper in the long run.

It may also be worth just phoning them over and over again (using their free-phone number, even once they tell you to use the chargeable one) to get the deeds back. It is completely possible that someone will just send them to you, given all the different stories that seem to come from the different operators within the company!

Contact the Land Registry for the area that the property is in. My local registry told me that ITC had not applied to them, even though ITC were promising me that they had. They will also be able to tell you how much their services have cost.

And remember, any replies to the letters they are billing you for writing (letters to banks, official bodies, etc.) are yours because you will have paid for them. I would say, take all you can get and put anything else down to experience. It will be the best way in the end, I think I can promise you that.

John_Pierpoint

gem2010 wrote: »

Thank you for the replies. Another disapointing aspect of this is Barclays. Both myself and my parents are lifelong customers but their association with ITC has me seriously considering changing banks although having said that my mother has found problems with a number of the banks in trying to sort out some of her dad's affairs. Is there not one financial institution that have properly trained, compassionate and understanding staff to deal properly with probate issues ? I Will keep the forum updated with our progress if there is any to report !

I've had to close down bank accounts of the deceased at most of them:
Barclays were by far the worst. I could go on, and on, and on.
[and so can Barclays - they have just written to me about a "dormant" account with a balance of £0 - I wrote to them 18 months ago, returning the cheque book and saying the account was now closed]
The local branch of HSBC was knowledgeable and efficient, but I think it depends on the staff.
In Abbey, I made an appointment to sort out 3 accounts, and went into town:
"Can you come back tomorrow?".
"No my foot is nailed to the floor and I am not going anywhere until this is sorted out"
.
.
.
[I later overheard a winge about "I was hoping to get off early today............."]

2,000 people die every working day in this country, you would think that large financial institutions had well oiled procedures for probate and bankruptcy.

The Land Registry on line fee for access to the title is £4 for the writing and £4 for the map, when you do it yourself using your credit/debit card.
Though that is not legal for a conveyance, it is quite good enough for deciding to take on an account for preparation of papers for probate.