Please help - RBS, a 77 year old, a £20K loan, and death...

Debt_Free_Dreamer

Sorry for your loss.

Don't appoint a Solicitor if you manage to become Executor yourself. You do not need a Solictor to deal with probate, only to assist with the sale of a property.

A solicitor wanted 1.5% of the value of the hosue, 1% of any cash and £12 for every letter written. I wrote over 50 letters as my dad was a bit of a credit card tart and had cards and bank accounts all over the place. Our bill would have been a fortune. Luckily we googled "Probate" and found out how to do the work ourselves.

The Halifax wrongly told us we needed to have a Solicitor (so did the Solictor :mad::mad:) and I am still very angry about that.

With regard to bills, luckily for us we had cash in bank accounts to pay back credit cards, the funeral etc., otherwise things would have become very problematic as both my brother and I are not cash rich and therefore would not have been able to pay for these things.

Can you contact the loan people and ask that the freeze the interest and allow you not to make payments for a specific period of time, until the property is sold? Probate takes a few months to come through anyway and until you have that you are not able to deal with the house sale or access bank accounts etc.,

Have you applied for Probate yet?

The other thing you need to consider is utilities on the house like water rates, council tax etc., as they don't just stop. You need to have a plan of action as to who is going to pay these bills.

paologray

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I thought I'd inform you of how I've gotten on. I got the bank to renounce their role as executors and I am now executor.

VERY IMPORTANT MONEY SAVING TIP FOR ALL THERE - CHECK YOUR WILL AND GET IT CHANGED TO A RESPONSIBLE SIBLING / FRIEND / LOVED ONE, MORE IMPORTANTLY, SOMEONE WHO WONT CHARGE!!!

The matter has now been passed over to the Banks legal department - Greens & Co Solicitors (RBS workers using a different letterhead).

In the letter it states that the charge against the house could be applied retrospectively, and that the bank (RBS) will accept a lower figure for settlement.

Does anyone have any past dealings with loan amounts being settled for a lower sum? What percentage did you get off?

Watch this space...!

ILW

Sounds like the the bank are being reasonable, they are not forcing a sale of the house and would rather have a reduced sum now than wait for an indefinite period to get their money when the house is sold.

alice011178

Hi Paul,

Good work!

Did you ever manage to find out where that huge sum of money went to? Reading through the thread, that would be my first and main concern. I know that it is relatively easy to spend big chunks of cash, but it didn't sound as if your grandmother was that sort of person. And it didn't sound like she had spent it on home improvements/car/flash holidays either. That would leave me asking some big questions - has she borrowed it for someone else/has she been a victim of some kind of con or fraud? Has a family member/friend/neighbour got her to take out the loan on their behalf without telling anyone?

It would be really interesting to hear how your detective work has been getting on.

paologray

Hi Alice.

Well, when I was granted probate (Executor) I managed to get statements from the bank for the previous 5 years.

Going through all of the pages was very interesting reading. We noticed payments going out to a mickey mouse loan company from years ago, I think they were called somthing vague like First Direct (but it wasnt them)...

Looks like she took a loan out from this loan shark company, probably only for a couple of grand and the interest just escalated over the years... and then she took the loan out with RBS to pay the shark off.

Oh well...

paologray

Im happy with the way things have panned out:

Asking the bank to renounce as executors saved £3,000.

No solicitors have been involved yet probably saving at least £1000.

Looks like a settlement figure may be agreed, I wont settle for anything over 50% - £9000 saved.

So all in I should be about £13,000 better off than if I'd just bowed down to the bank and did what they said.

I've learned a lot about dealing with big companies!

ILW

Does sound like the bank were not the baddies in this case and may have helped her out.

I would probably not try to be too clever with them though as they may still have the option of forcing a sale if you cannot agree a settlement figure though.