Dealing with Estate

getmore4less

It would appear the year point has been reached and the creditor is trying to push things along as they are not happy with the progress.

Leaving a house empty is a resource drain on an estate.

konark

The fact remains that they should not be sending invoices or letters before action addressed to you personally. You have no power to act. Who are they going to take to court? You are not personally liable for the debts of your father's estate.

From reading your posts I can still see no way in which you have intermeddled, and the fact that your father's flat is still empty and unsold would suggest you have done nothing to settle the estate. Informing banks, insurance companies and Govt. agencies etc of the death and arranging and paying for a funeral would not be considered intermeddling.

If the care home want their money quickly then perhaps they should apply to administer the estate.

Yorkshireman99

konark wrote: »

The fact remains that they should not be sending invoices or letters before action addressed to you personally. You have no power to act. Who are they going to take to court? You are not personally liable for the debts of your father's estate.

From reading your posts I can still see no way in which you have intermeddled, and the fact that your father's flat is still empty and unsold would suggest you have done nothing to settle the estate. Informing banks, insurance companies and Govt. agencies etc of the death and arranging and paying for a funeral would not be considered intermeddling.

If the care home want their money quickly then perhaps they should apply to administer the estate.

Plenty of references on line about intermedling. Apart from arranging the funeral is intermeddling. Just on reference for example.

http://www.mondaq.co.uk/x/209888/wills+intestacy+estate+planning/What+Not+To+Do+When+Someone+Dies

As I said before the OP should get urgent professional advice rather than relying on questionable advice from this, or indeed any other, forum.

securityguy

konark wrote: »

The fact remains that they should not be sending invoices or letters before action addressed to you personally. You have no power to act. Who are they going to take to court? You are not personally liable for the debts of your father's estate. .

The problem is the potential to have been intermeddling. If you are someone who could be an administrator, and you start administering the estate (ie, doing more than organising a funeral and notifying people), you can be held to have taken on the obligations of the administrator. It's the same problem as if you are named an executor, don't want to do it (ie, want to renounce), but have in the meantime done some executor-stuff; you remain responsible for the legitimacy and due diligence.

In this case, there's a potentially declining asset, a house in poor repair. The allegation will be (and we don't know from the OP's account) that the costs of the house - insurance, minimal utilities, etc - have been met by the OP by taking money from the estate, which makes them an administrator, obliged to repay debts with reasonable despatch, ie by selling the house. The wider allegation will be that the OP has been sitting on an asset, in the hope that it doesn't need to be sold to meet debts, so that they can then (presumably) improve it and sell if for more. That might not be true, in which case the OP can show that the house has been left abandoned and/or they personally met the costs (and even then, and note I am not a lawyer, I can imagine that being held to be intermeddling). Indeed, the mere act of engaging in correspondence - whose effect is to attempt to delay settlement until unspecified events happen - could be held to be intermeddling.

The care home's solicitor will argue that the OP should have set things in motion for someone else to administer the estate, recover the debt, and then pass the remainder to the residual beneficiaries, or should have sold the house with reasonable despatch and settled the estate, solvent or not. Waiting a year to see if it became solvent is unconscionable.

YM and I disagree about the executors' obligations, and I have a view that it is harder to force executors to do things than he does (ie, I think the executor can say "go fish" in circumstances where YM thinks they have obligations to assist creditors).

However, this isn't one of those cases: the OP had full knowledge of the debts and assets, and behaved in a way which can be seen as deliberately, and certainly with the effect of, maximising the return for the beneficiaries at the expense of the creditors. And even left a trail of letters to confirm what was going on.

The OP needs legal advice. If the house is auctioned, and there is a shortfall, and it can be argued that auctioning it a year ago would have raised more money (which if it's in poor repair, plus Brexit, is hardly going to be difficult) then the OP could be on the hook for the shortfall. They need legal advice.

KKA_2

Hi
Thankyou for your responses.
Although i can see your point of view about inter-meddling with the estate, any actions i have carried out have been because ultimately it will be myself applying for the grant of representation to administer the estate anyway.
I acknowledge i have taken a year to do this, this has been for several reasons which are irrelevant to discuss based on the advice now required.
The sums of money here are pretty small (3.5k) which the local authority has now paid (2.3K).
The local authority has kindly asked me to lodge the invoice against the estate and settle once the property has been sold.
I dont think the property will be worth any more or any less than a year ago, and is only worth what someone is willing to pay in its current condition.
I appreciate the care provider is a business and requires paying for the service, however i believe its unnecessary to start legal proceedings when i have kept them informed.

Yorkshireman99

KKA wrote: »

Hi
Thankyou for your responses.
Although i can see your point of view about inter-meddling with the estate, any actions i have carried out have been because ultimately it will be myself applying for the grant of representation to administer the estate anyway.
I acknowledge i have taken a year to do this, this has been for several reasons which are irrelevant to discuss based on the advice now required.
The sums of money here are pretty small (3.5k) which the local authority has now paid (2.3K).
The local authority has kindly asked me to lodge the invoice against the estate and settle once the property has been sold.
I dont think the property will be worth any more or any less than a year ago, and is only worth what someone is willing to pay in its current condition.
I appreciate the care provider is a business and requires paying for the service, however i believe its unnecessary to start legal proceedings when i have kept them informed.

I am sorry to be blunt but you don't seem to realise the seriousness of the situation. You have failed to deal with matter in a timely manner you have potentially laid yourself open to action. You appear to have breached your obligations as executor ot tr4ustee. That is why you need urgent professional help before you are in even more trouble.

konark

The OP is not the executor/administrator, he has no obligation to do anything.

He is under no legal obligation to administer his father's estate even if he had been named executor, which he hasn't. He cannot be held liable for non=payment of the estate debts as he had no authority to act.

Savvy_Sue

KKA wrote: »

I appreciate the care provider is a business and requires paying for the service, however i believe its unnecessary to start legal proceedings when i have kept them informed.

Leaving aside the question of whether or not you've intermeddled, I'm not sure your belief about legal proceedings not being necessary has any weight in this situation.

It's a relatively small sum owed once the local authority's payment is taken into account. IMO the quickest and easiest way of dealing with this is to pay the home, borrowing if necessary, and crack on with administering the estate. Whether that's the legally correct way of dealing with this is another matter.

Tuesday_Tenor

Questions first:
Why do you think the estate may not be solvent? Are there other substantial debts that you have not mentioned?

As you have not mentioned any other family, can we assume that your father did not leave a widowed spouse, and that you are an only child, and will therefore be the sole beneficiary under the intestacy rules?

Coments:
Standard advice here would be to NOT get involved at all with an insolvent estate. Leave it for a creditor with a substantial interest to take on the administration of the estate. (The care home would be unlikely to do this for an outstanding debt of less than £2K as they will incur more than this in legal fees). However, once you 'intermeddle' with an estate you are starting to assume the responsibilities of the Personal Representative (executor or administrator) and it may not be possible to just walk away.
You need to be careful, as beyond certain rules about priority creditors, you must not treat one creditor more favourably than another. You have told the care home that they will be paid when the house is sold, but if the the estate is insolvent, that may not be the case. This whole issue of possible insolvency, and whether you have in fact committed yourself to act is what you first need proper legal advice about.

On the other hand, if the estate is likely to be solvent, then in order to inherit anything you are going to have to act as Administrator, then the sooner you get on with this, the better.

Sounds like a difficult situation ... Use your improved understanding, from this board, to get proper legal support.

Yorkshireman99

konark wrote: »

The OP is not the executor/administrator, he has no obligation to do anything.

He is under no legal obligation to administer his father's estate even if he had been named executor, which he hasn't. He cannot be held liable for non=payment of the estate debts as he had no authority to act.

I suggest you look at the following and refer to the Act as you seem incapable of comprehending what intermeddling means
The Administration of Estates Act 1925 is the basis for the doctrine, and states that if any person obtains, receives or holds any asset of a deceased person without receiving full consideration, or effects the release of any debt or liability due to the estate of the deceased then they become an 'executor of their own wrong' and will have intermeddled. Broadly speaking, acts which involve dealing with the deceased's assets in a manner which goes further than merely safeguarding them and their value are acts which are likely to be classed as intermeddling.
Actions which are almost certain to land a beneficiary in those realms are those such as continuing to run any business of the deceased, and both collecting and paying the debts of the deceased. Taking steps such as disposing of or selling the deceased's property are also sufficient to cross the line.