Probate/intestacy stalemate query

posttokev

Cheers John. We're filing the Defence and hoping that prompts him to back down once he's considered it. Obviously no guarantees...

jbworldwide

posttokev wrote: »

Cheers John. We're filing the Defence and hoping that prompts him to back down once he's considered it. Obviously no guarantees...

do let us know how this works out...

Willornot

What shocking incompetence from your solicitor. This may be a very late call here, but I hav personally had great success using Legal Expenses attached to my Building & Contents home insurance. Many people take this cover by merely ticking a box, or an additional 'add on' from home insurance, and never call them or even know what it's for. If your mom by any luck has this cover, call them, it's generally a company called DAS in Bristol. They will help you and appoint a solicitor for you who will take up your case. It will cost you nothing, you are covered on your home insurance. They fought a case for me which resulted in a win of over £80,000 and it cost me not one penny. Please tell your mom to check if she has this Legal Expenses cover on her insurance.

fluffymuffy

I'll second that. I'm a big fan of legal insurance. So much so that in addition to the policy attached to my household insurance I also have a stand-alone policy, and a policy as an add on to my car insurance. In addition I have legal insurance as an perk of membership to a professional body to do with work. Anyone reading this might want to check what they already have (and buy more if needed, before it's too late). If you're a member of a union you might have legal insurance there too.

posttokev

My mother doesn't have legal cover so that's not an option, sadly. Defence is submitted on Friday.

NAR

Good luck.

posttokev

Hello again. Just thought I'd give a quick update on this...

Can't remember if I mentioned the Will file, but after much wrangling, we finally got that out of the other side's solicitors. It stated that the Will only applied whilst my mother and grandmother were estranged. As the estrangement ended at the end, this will be one of our strongest arguments should the case go all the way to court.

My uncle made an offer recently of £10,000 for my mother to basically sign the Will over to him and go away. She continues to fight for a 50-50 share as one of the two siblings.

In the most recent correspondence with the other side's solicitors, ours stated:

"We write further to the Court Order of... We note that you have not served a Reply to the Defence by the prescribed date and therefore assume that you do not intend to do so."

We're still chasing up the significance, if any, of this.

A hearing's set in a few weeks time where my mother, my uncle and their legal people have to be in attendance. Apparently, this is unusual as usually the parties can just be on the phone, but this judge is said to be quite pro-active in trying to engineer a settlement early and avoid (in our case) the 3 day hearing that's pencilled in for late this year/early next.

Apart from that, there's another deadline in a month and a half to submit our case. I still feel instinctively it won't got all the way - there's no original Will, the Will file supports our case etc - but we're still mentally preparing ourselves for a court hearing all the same.

posttokev

Hi all,

So it's mediation on Friday, but I'm a bit unclear as to what happens there. (Even though it seems obvious...)

Our solicitor has told us it's solely about making offers and nothing else. I'd put together a list of negotiation points, reasons as to why the other side should be open to the offers we make and settle, such as...

There's no original Will,
The Will file negates the validity of the Will,
The solicitor for the other party is in dispute with his own client regarding a key fact,
At an earlier hearing, the Judge was misled by the other party.

...reasons making it abundantly clear to the other party as to why he is unlikely to be successful in court, but our solicitor maintains its purely about offers, not anything contextual. (There are many other points on my list as well.)

If we are not discussing these points at mediation, there would surely be absolutely no reason for the other party to move from his current position of holding out for the entirety of the estate? It would merely be a matter of us saying, “give us half”, him saying “no”, us saying “give us a bit less than half”, him saying “no” and so on.

As ever, your thoughts on this would be much appreciated.

posttokev

First time I've ever drawn a blank on this forum. Oh well... Mediation tomorrow...

observations_from_a_hill

Well. none of us is better placed to advise than your own solicitor.

You need to sort out with him tomorrow before your mediation starts

1. Your ideal settlement.

2. What you will accept.

He will ascribe a much higher risk than you do to taking the matter further in the court process. This is normally based on experience. Like, would your mum turn weird in the witness box, did the Judge have sleep disrupted by thunderstorms the night before the hearing.

So sort out in advance and with advice your minimum requirements - otherwise you will be faced with your solicitor saying tomorrow "This is the deal". Yes, they are just interested in money (either as fixed sum or % of the estate), background details are irrelevant.

If your solicitor thinks you have a good case (leaving aside the risks of mum having a weird spell & the thunderstorms), then he should tell you.

Anyway, best of luck tomorrow.