Solicitors, wills and money!

Caroline_a

Evening All... as I may have mentioned before in one or two posts, I currently have a solicitor working on sorting out my father's estate. This guy is the slowest worker in the world, my dad died in April 2010, I got all the paperwork to him in May, all catalogued, sorted and in separate folders. He then sat on it. For months and months...

So it's well over 2 years later, and he's still making excuses. The executor, who appointed him, is deeply embarrassed and has instructed him to sort it immediately. Probate was granted over a year ago, so there should now be no reason why this cannot be finalised...

Anyway, my question to you all is that the solicitor has been holding the cash part of the estate now for 2 years. He said to the executor the other day that any interest would be only in the region of around a third of a percent!!! Surely he should be ensuring that the estate money is earning good (or at least average) interest - and if not, why not?

meritaten

you COULD change solicitors - but the cost may outwiegh the time saved.
you could also write to the solicitor asking them to account for the delay and to give you a date when the estate would be distributed.
and also mention that you are not happy with his handling of the estate and that any further delay or if you were not happy with his accounting would be referred to 'The Law Society'. sort of the legal professions ombudsman.

Caroline_a

I have already lodged a complaint with the Legal Ombudsman and they have already written to him, but it seems to have made little difference. There cannot be anything much left to do - he keeps burbling about tax and the Inland Revenue, but he was saying the same thing last August!

I think that to change now would cost far too much, but if I know that I can claim interest on the amount he has been holding (over £100,000!) even 1% would be worth having!

mynameistallulah

Is is a particularly complicated estate, are there any trusts involved? Could the executor do the rest of the work themselves?

Lindsay_C

I work for a solicitors - monies should go into something called a 'client account' and you should be able to ask for for lieu of interest, especially after two years!

Is there anything still waiting to come in? Or out? Once you get probate it should be straightforward.

Caroline_a

Thanks everyone. To answer the questions, it was a simple straightforward will, with one trust to be set up. That was apparently done over 12 months ago! All monies were with the solicitor by June 2010, and the only thing that hasn't been paid out now is the main amount of money which is to come to me. Excuses so far have been 'I've been on holiday/off sick, my secretry's been on holiday/off sick' he has even tried to say that I had been 'difficult' to the executor... So that will be my intermittent requests for updates, having not heard for a month or so!

Probate was granted last year, again over 12 months ago! Lindsay, you say I can ask for interest - what is reasonable?

kazwookie

I'd start ringing / contacting the solicitor daily, and go and visit weekly, to push him along.

SmlSave

Hi hun, at the solicitors i work for our account gets 0.05% interest which is pathetic but all the bank lets us have

However, we pay the beneficiaries (sp!) interim payments so we dont hold too much of their money in our account

daska

Has the ombudsman suggested any next step? Maybe you should go back to them and ask. And yes, I'd also be getting in touch with the law society to ask what steps you need to take to force him to have an audit, check that he has insurance etc.

Lindsay_C

Caroline_a wrote: »

Thanks everyone. To answer the questions, it was a simple straightforward will, with one trust to be set up. That was apparently done over 12 months ago! All monies were with the solicitor by June 2010, and the only thing that hasn't been paid out now is the main amount of money which is to come to me. Excuses so far have been 'I've been on holiday/off sick, my secretry's been on holiday/off sick' he has even tried to say that I had been 'difficult' to the executor... So that will be my intermittent requests for updates, having not heard for a month or so!

Probate was granted last year, again over 12 months ago! Lindsay, you say I can ask for interest - what is reasonable?

I don't know the exact figure, it's not a lot, but you should definitely ask for it to be added to the account - it all adds up!

By the sounds of it you've got a poor excuse of a solicitor. You said you went to the ombudsman - have you complained to the firm through their complaints system?

Lara44

Sounds really suspicious - has he embezzled it? I would be doing what daska and kazwookie suggest.