probate help family getting out of control

micmac22

Hello MSE’rs
If you fancy some family gossip and a bit of a read I could do with your thoughts on how to deal with this unusual probate issue of my Fathers will. And am I in any serious trouble with the below.

For arguments sake on this open forum take my word for it I have had some money given to me by my father over the several years I have helped look after him. Also sibling has had power of attorney for the last 4-5 months / cleared and sold fathers house as he went into care home.

My Father died 4/5/14… funeral 16/5/14… leaving 3 adult children.

 Received this Email on Sunday 18/5/14 at 09.26hrs from my brother in law.

As executor of your dad's estate, I have been going over his accounts. He told us a few years ago about his investments and various building society accounts, but all I can find are his premium bonds, four hundred shares in Lloyds, one deposit account with a small amount of money, and his current account. Have you any idea what happened to the other shares and other accounts?

I also noticed that his income was £1160.63 per month. This comprises of:-

DWP Pension Credit £13.20 per week (approx. £57.20/month)
DWP State Pension £774.08/month
xxxxxxxx Pension £329.35/month
______________
Giving a total of £1160.63/month

As we all know, Dad was virtually housebound, yet £200 per week nearly every week was withdrawn from his current account via ATMs from the xxxxxxx until xxxxxxxxxx, in total £24800.00 This was separate from his household bills and food, which were already accounted for.

In addition, while he was in xxxxxxxxxx hospital, cheques for £1000 (cheque number xxxxxx, cashed on xxxxxx) and £800 (cheque number xxxxx, cashed on xxxxxxx), made payable to xxxxxx were drawn on Dad's current account.

This makes a grand total of £26600.00

Is this £26600.00 part of your inheritance? As xxxxxx has not received any money, and as far as I can tell from your Dad's financial records xxxxxx has not received anything either, if the £26600.00 is part of your inheritance, the final distribution of your Dad's estate will have to be adjusted accordingly. Or have you put this money into a different account? In which case please could I have a cheque (made payable to your father) for the missing amount of £26000.00 plus the accrued interest.
The winding up of your Dad's estate must be kept on hold until this matter is resolved, otherwise I would be failing in my duty as Executor.

I look forward to receiving a speedy response.

xxxxxxx

 My reply to this on Monday 19/5/14 at 07.34.

Hello
I Acknowledge receipt of the email and thank you for bringing these issues to my attention. I am looking into the issues raised and will reply in due course. Could you provide me in the meantime with full disclosure of the details of the accounts you refer to including a full breakdown of how you have calculated my Dads income and expenditure and which accounts and investments he is referring too . Email copies of original should also be included too and for correctness can you please provide evidence you are now the new executor of my Dads estate and provide me with the necessary documentation in order that I respond to the correct person. I take this matter very seriously, I do not like what you are implying in your email and wish to move swiftly to conclude this matter. I look forward to your accounts and documentation.
Xxxxxxx

 Didn’t get a reply so sent this to them on 19/5/14 21.10 as they are seeing solicitor in the morning.

As you have not provided me with any of the required documentation requested I have endeavoured to answer the questions asked by you in order that you can complete your duties as executors with the solicitors in the morning. please see my answers to your questions below highlighted in purple. I trust this clarifies my position.
As executor of your dad's estate, I have been going over his accounts. He told us a few years ago about his investments and various building society accounts, but all I can find are his premium bonds, four hundred shares in Lloyds, one deposit account with a small amount of money, and his current account. Have you any idea what happened to the other shares and other accounts?
I have no idea about any other shares or accounts.

I also noticed that his income was £1160.63 per month. This comprises of:-

DWP Pension Credit £13.20 per week (approx. £57.20/month)
DWP State Pension £774.08/month
xxxxxxxxxxx Pension £329.35/month
______________
Giving a total of £1160.63/month

As we all know, Dad was virtually housebound, yet £200 per week nearly every week was withdrawn from his current account via ATMs from the xxxxxx until xxxxxxx, in total £24800.00 This was separate from his household bills and food, which were already accounted for.

In addition, while he was in xxxxxxxxxl, cheques for £1000 (cheque numberxxxxxxx, cashed on xxxxxxx) and £800 (cheque number xxxxxx, cashed on xxxxxxxx), made payable to xxxxxx were drawn on Dad's current account.

This makes a grand total of £26600.00

Is this £26600.00 part of your inheritance? No , why are you suggesting it is ? Why are you asking me for £26,600 pounds and threatening me with legal action ?
I look forward to your clarification.
xxxxxxxxxxx

 Received this back after brother in law has seen solicitor this morning.

Many thanks for both of your e-mails.

Regarding your first e-mail:-

xxxxxx & I were working until late last night compiling the information that you asked for, and have handed it over to our solicitor this morning. At this meeting we discussed various options, and our solicitor will be writing to you directly. Our solicitor will also be able to confirm that I am an Executor of Dad's estate.

Regarding your second e-mail:-

Thank you for answering my first query, but the matter of the £26600 still needs to be resolved, because as Executors, xxxxxx and I could be held legally responsible for this money.

As this situation has become more formal, any future concerns you should have should be addressed (by you or your legal representative) to our solicitor and not to us.

If you had just been straight and helpful in the first place, this matter would have been resolved by now. All xxxxx and I are doing is legally sorting out Dad's estate. You have escalated the situation and wrongly taken it as a personal vendetta.

Hoping you will be more forthcoming to our solicitor,
xxxxxxxxxx



That’s all for now folks……….
I look forwards to reading your thoughts and thank you in advance.

Ivrytwr3

Bit difficult to read and understand, but..............so where is the £26k?

Gingernutty

So if I understand this correctly -

£26,600 has gone from your Dad's accounts

No one dealing with the estate knows where it's gone

They've asked everyone else it could be and they've all denied taking the money

The executors have asked you if you know where the £26,600 is

and instead of 'fessing up, you've stalled for time.

You did not have POA, you had no right to take the money and there was no written agreement that you could have it. You've just helped yourself.

Yes. You're in trouble. If you cannot repay the money, then the final inheritance will have to be adjusted to take into account the £26,600 you've already taken.

And yes, they can account for the interest that your Dad's money should have accumulated.

Assuming it was you, of course.

If not, and no one else has it, then someone has stolen £26,600 from your Dad and the police need to be involved.

Somerset

Did you withdraw the cash £200 at a time from the ATM's ?
Were the two cheques made out to you and banked by you ?
Were the ''other shares and investments'' cashed in by you or your father and did you receive the proceeds ?

micmac22

withdrew £200 from atm when told to by father while doing his shopping each week over last 4 + years, most weeks he gave most or all of it to me.
chqs given by dad to me as xmas birthday gifts to my family banked by me and given out.
shares investment i have know idea brother in law knows more than me.

BobQ

OP,

Assuming your BIL is indeed the executor he is doing his job in law in making reasonable inquiries into your late father's affairs. Engaging a solicitor would make sense if illegality is suspected and if evidence exists the next step would be the police.

For arguments sake on this open forum take my word for it I have had some money given to me by my father over the several years I have helped look after him. Also sibling has had power of attorney for the last 4-5 months / cleared and sold fathers house as he went into care home.

If your BIL was acting under a valid POA selling his property is perfectly legal unless the POA did not permit it.

If your Dad gave you money this would not be a problem unless you were accused of stealing it. Accepting gifts is quite acceptable unless he was pressurised into making them or did not understand what was being done. Similarly with ATM withdrawals. If your Dad was withdrawing the money or knew the withdrawals were being made this is not illegal, but might need some explaining now he is not alive to say so.

If you have been making cash withdrawals or accepting cheques from your Dad you would be better explaining what had happened and why. We cannot tell from your post if you have acted in good faith or not. Your BIL seems to have assumed you have not.

BobQ

micmac22 wrote: »

withdrew £200 from atm when told to by father while doing his shopping each week over last 4 + years, most weeks he gave most or all of it to me.
chqs given by dad to me as xmas birthday gifts to my family banked by me and given out.
shares investment i have know idea brother in law knows more than me.

Well I can see your point of view, you were looking after your Dad and doing what he asked/wanted.

From your BIL point of view, if he did not know this he has a point too.

Personally, I would explain what you have done and why. Did anyone independent know what was going on (one of his friends maybe?). It might be useful to you if they did.

I did all sorts of transactions for my parents, including transferring money to my account and using cash cards. There was nothing remotely underhand in this but had anyone queried it I can see that in the mind of an uncharitable person I would have had problems explaining what I had done 4 years ago.

Crabapple

To be honest, it looks like you have immediately gone on the defensive after the initial e-mail (there may of course be more family history to explain this) which is probably going to make matters worse.

You will now have to explain to the solicitors what it might have been best to explain in the beginning, that your father asked you to make cash withdrawals (although obviously you didn't keep track of exactly how much over the period) and gave you some of this money.

The cheques again, say that they were for birthday/christmas gifts for your family.

You should probably make it explict that beyond the cash withdrawals your father authorised you to make, you have not otherwise operated any of his accounts or opened/closed anything of his and have not known what funds he had available (assuming this is the case).

The solicitors are probably going to ask you to return some or even all of the money, or expect your share of the estate to be reduced. Your father was entitled to make gifts, but from the point of view of the rest of the family, this is a lot of money over a period of time even though you were caring for him.

At this stage you need to wait for the solicitors letter to see what they are proposing/asking, and I suggest you be a bit more forthcoming with them because it's only going to complicate matters in the administration until this is resolved.

You might want to get your own legal advice depending on the contents of the letter.

Mojisola

micmac22 wrote: »

If you had just been straight and helpful in the first place, this matter would have been resolved by now. All xxxxx and I are doing is legally sorting out Dad's estate. You have escalated the situation and wrongly taken it as a personal vendetta.

This makes a lot of sense.

I looked after my parents in their last years - sometimes I paid for things they wanted on my credit card and they gave me a cheque or cash, I regularly went to get cash from the PO for them and, as the hours I spent with them increased, they often gave me some money. However, my siblings knew this was going on and they knew the kind of money that was being passed on.

If you think everything you did was above board, why didn't you just explain when asked by the executors? If the money was all given to you by your father or used for his expenses, your inheritance shouldn't be reduced at all.

Somerset

micman22, there are two possibilities here :


1) Financial elder abuse. http://www.elderabuse.org.uk/. Where a friend/relative fleece's an older person who doesn't understand/realise what is going on. I'd think this is on your BIL's mind.


2) Genuine gifts/help where an older person (or anyone) has all their facilities and choose's to gift whatever to whoever. It is their property and they can do what they like with it. I'd assume this is your position.


There was a thread on here about (1). It got to the police stage but the CPS wouldn't prosecute (the elderly gentleman was still alive and stated elder abuse, essentially fraud).


If you are stating (2) I think it impacts the estate but no, you don't have to repay. Gifts within X years of death springs to mind where there's a tax claw-back, but check it yourself. It also shouldn't affect the distribution per the will ie your inheritance if any.


At the least, there will be family ructions because your relative's will think you've been bleeding your father dry. With or without his knowledge. They may assume, without. What they do with that assumption, or can do, legally, I've no idea.


But the fall-out is not going to be pretty. 26K is a lot of money.

Ozzuk

I don't think your BiL's email was threatening legal action at all. As mentioned, you've gone on the defensive because you worry you've done something wrong. Seems like a nasty situation now when you could have just said, yes dad gave me money each week as I was looking after him.

I'd bet the family already suspected you were being given money hence why they've gone over the accounts in such detail. Next steps, you could be open and honest and talk to them before this really escalates, or get legal advice. I also wonder if you're claiming any benefits if this potential 'additional income' could impact that (if they really wanted to get you into trouble).

I am sorry for your loss though and hope you get this sorted.