ITC Legal Services - Avoid Them

alharpo

Well i am surprised, i sent a e-mail asking why after i had requested a interim payment i had not received any reply and to my astonishment they sent one back saying they where dealing with my request, they then sent my interim payment without any fee's attached all in the space of one week, i have now learnt that the estate of my late father has had contracts signed and they have received all monies involved, this was to my knowledge over 8 weeks ago, so i am under the immpresion that the interim payment was just made to keep me from complaining and that the longer they can keep the funds the more interest they can accumalate to top up every thing they can.

portlandboy

alharpo wrote: »

Well i am surprised, i sent a e-mail asking why after i had requested a interim payment i had not received any reply and to my astonishment they sent one back saying they where dealing with my request, they then sent my interim payment without any fee's attached all in the space of one week, .

Do you mean they have informed you that they are not going to charge the £250 fee for this payment or that they just haven't charged it yet? If they haven't expressly told you that the charge has been waived I'll bet that they will take it out of the estate before paying you out, as the agreement states.
I also agree that ITC must be earning interest on estate funds that they hold, simply because if they only earned their money on the closing of each case, they would have to work a damned site quicker than they do or they would be bankrupt!!

blckbrd

Would Trading Standards not have a role to play in this?

angrygirlie

HOORAY, SO I AM NOT ALONE ON THIS ONE. I HAVE HUNTED HIGH AND LOW TO FIND OUT IF WAS THE ONLY UNFORTUNATE BEREAVED PERSON TO BE 'RECOMMENDED' BY THE BEREAVEMENT CENTRE TO ALLOW ITC, SO CALLED 'LEGAL SERVICES' TO DEAL WITH THE ADMINISTRATION OF MY DEAR DEPARTED MUM'S ESTATE AS I WAS WAS IN DEEP GRIEF. ALL THIS COMPANY HAS DONE IS IN MY EXPERIENCE OF BEING 'LUMBERED' WITH THEM IS CONSTANTLY PROVE THAT THEY ARE INEFFICIENT, DISORGANISED, MISLEADING, AND THEY HAVE YOU BY THE SHORT AND CURLIES. PLEASE, WHOEVER READS THIS THREAD, I BEG, DO NOT GO NEAR THEM. Angry capital letters over! I can write a whole website about the last 22 months that I have had to endure with this company. The biggest mistake I have made, but, I had never been appointed as an executor before or had to deal with a loved ones death before, especially when it was the most important person in my life. I was devastated and called the Bereavement Centre as needed help in the administration and mediation with another executor (2 executors who do not see eye to eye equates to problems sorting out the will, so best appoint some 'legal' person who knows what they're doing (huh!) )
ITC have added serious stress, anguish and more pain to what was already a difficult situation. Oh , And they charge for it as well. My mum's estate was distributed this week so thank goodness I no longer have to deal with them. What a relief. however, now the final long, long letter of complaint begins. I did make a serious letter of complaint 5 months after appointing them, listing so many screw ups. They contacted me, said they could not explain why so many things had 'gone wrong', and these things should not of happened but now they wanted to regain my confidence and move my case into one person's area to communicate directly between myself and the other executor. (yes, normally one person does not deal with your case. Lots of departments do, so no one seems to know what's going on half the time between the depts) Guess what, nothing changed. Mis information, mis communication or no communication, lost documents, mislaid documents, messages not passed on, asking for information about information that they've already had, not sending letters that they said they have, and so the list goes on. I can't say too much as it was a difficult situation I was in with another executor, but ITC actually inflamed the situation so many times. The worse was by writing a letter to the other exec, saying that I had instructed them (ITC) to do a particular thing with some of my mothers assets, and to ask for the other exec's mutual agreement. This was incorrect and the other exec went ballistic (with me), yet I did not know that the letter said what it did. When I challenged ITC about the letter mis informing the other exec, I was told, sorry, can't do anything now as the letter has gone out, however we can write another letter explaining. I told them it was too late, damage done.
Phone calls, tears, frustration and the finding out they are not regulated after 6 months of appointing them very scarey. Spoke to retired solicitor but as ITC had Power of Attorney, would need court to 'sack' them (I did'nt need any more on my plate.) Solictor suggested to keep complaining when they messed up. I Did but always just got a verbal apology and a really meek excuse, or what I call 'not quite the truth excuse' . On ocassions when I was on the phone in tears as they had messed up again, got no empathy, but was told that I am always upset when I speak to them!!! I'd say of course I'm upset, I'm dealing with my mothers death, family problems and ITC are not helping the situation by not doing things 'right' (for a company that deals with the bereaved they really need to have some training in dealing with the grief stricken) I dreaded calling them to chase up something that was not done, as I knew I would get an unacceptable excuse. So frustrating!
I do not anticipate any joy from the next letter of complaint, so I will go for Trading Standards under the supply of goods and services. When I got the final accounts through, I found out the interest earned on the money they held is kept by them! (I am looking into this pratice). They were late getting me the accounts and I had to chase them up, then they were late paying me my money and had to chase them again. It's obvious to me why they dragged that bit out. I was prepared to go to the bookies and gamble my inheritance that the accounts and payments would not arrive when they said they would. That's how confident I was with ITC's inefficiency. Even at the end they manage to make it difficult.

angrygirlie

I have just checked out the Bereavement Advice Centre website in order to get a contact address to complain to them about the recommendation, and I am even more concerned now as the address to contact is the same address as itc legal services in Ryon Hill, Stratford Upon Avon. Who are the Bereavement Centre? If the BC was a charity organisation have they got a deal with itc as they are obviously 'living together'. this is getting more worrying. Does any one out there know if the 'recommendations' from the Bereavement Centre are actually itc steering people into their snare? Why do they operate from the same address? I am more angry now not realising such 'links' this charity has with such a badly run Probate company

watching_this_thread

Hello again

I have not posted for a while as I have been CANCELLING our contract with ITC Legal Services - this morning I have received all the paperwork from them including my dad's will, plus copies of the 40 letters they issued.

Just want to let you know how we went about this so as to help anyone else in the same situation:

executor (ie my brother) telephoned ITC to let them know we were wanted to cancel contract with them. We have previously complained and disatisfied with response.

He was told to sign the cancellation form supplied when he signed the contract with them - EVEN THOUGH IT WAS 4/5 MONTHS AFTER HE SIGNED UP - and to send it in by post (it says this is only for cancellations up to 7 days on the form).

Did so - requesting a written response/settlement figure within 14 working days and in the meantime having contacted Trading Standards North West and getting a case number and advice from them.

I followed up with ITC within a couple of days by phone - my brother gave permission to them over the phone that I could be the key contact (again inconsistencies internally here according to other posts on this forum) - to make sure they had received this cancellation and asked them to verbally tell me the likely cost by the end of the day.............THEY PHONED MY MOBILE AT 5.45PM and gave me the breakdown of costs.

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)

So the whole cancellation process took from 2nd November to today when I received papers in return for clearance of cheque ......yes - they sent them back to me on request even though i wasnt the contract holder...... (also if you send them anything by registered post it wont get there for a few days cos ITC's post department are not actually in the Ryon Hill House building - so has to be forwarded to building where post room is......)

So - if you are only up to stage 3 in the process - there is a cancellation route which you can use very quickly to pull out from ITC legal services.

I am now going to apply for grant of probate - the executors of the will, my brother and sister, just have to provide written confirmation that they approve this - and I will be able to progress this myself without paying ITC for the inconvenience of an appalling service. I have downloaded forms from the internet and used the probate helpline - very straight forward if the estate is below inheritance tax threshold.

Just want to thank portland boy particularly for assistance - we hope this post helps some others make the decision to cancel their service and to report to Trading Standards who take details of the firm.

good luck

watching_this_thread

Hello Angrygirlie - thanks for taking the time to post - your experience sounds horrendous and as you will see from my post just now I am glad we have managed to cancel the contract 'early' on. I also agree with you about the Bereavement Centre and have complained to my local council - Wirral BC - about the information being issued at Registrar's offices.

I have also complained to Trading Standards (which has a national number) to register problems with ITC Legal Services. I am glad the ordeal is over for you x

angrygirlie

Thanks. I am going to send in the complaint letter and if I get no joy, I will do the Trading Standards for sure. I'm glad you got out before it was too late. I just want to stop anyone else in a state of deep grief being directed into ITC's grip. I do not know how the people that run this company sleep at night. Interesting about the mail room being in a different location from the Ryon Hill office. Makes sense how so much correspondance was received much later than the actual dates on the letters, as well letters that were 'lost', or went awol.

portlandboy

angrygirlie wrote: »

I have just checked out the Bereavement Advice Centre website in order to get a contact address to complain to them about the recommendation, and I am even more concerned now as the address to contact is the same address as itc legal services in Ryon Hill, Stratford Upon Avon. Who are the Bereavement Centre? If the BC was a charity organisation have they got a deal with itc as they are obviously 'living together'. this is getting more worrying. Does any one out there know if the 'recommendations' from the Bereavement Centre are actually itc steering people into their snare? Why do they operate from the same address? I am more angry now not realising such 'links' this charity has with such a badly run Probate company

Hi,

Just to put you in the picture regarding ITC and the Bereavement Advice Centres. The BAC is a regestered charity but it is funded by ITC and that's why the BAC "recommends" ITC as a suitable probate company! So you're right to think that there is a deal between them - they're the same people but manage to get a tax break and the business as well. You'll also see that ITC have a deal with Barclay's Bank now, but many of the ties they had with local council regestrars have been cut because of high numbers of complaints from bereaved families being sent to ITC by the regestrars offices across the country.

angrygirlie

Thanks Portland boy. The situation gets more immoral. ITC has to be stopped from praticing unregulated and I will do everything that I can to warn people about this company. ITC can never ever compensate for the sheer anguish that they nave added to my life. And I hope that some serious media exposure is placed on not only them but also on the BAC. I will update on any outcomes of my complaint.