Executor taking funds from estate without authoristion

earlycomputers

Is there any recourse, if an executor who has been complained about by those who are the residuary estate owners/inheritees, uses the residuary estate funds to pay for their legal defence fees? How can we prevent him using our estate funds for this purpose? This executor was complained about by us to the Legal Ombudsman who found him guilty of poor/slow service and in the course of this complaint (ahead of an LO decision being made), he went to a solicitor to get legal advice. He is now going to take funds from our residuary estate in order to pay for the legal fees he incurred. Can he do this? Can we quote any legislation etc to him to stop him doing this? He wasn't ever actually sued by us, but just received a letter from my solicitors to request he provide further information about the probate.

Another question - the LO are not mandating that this executor finalise the probate. He has taken 4 years so far to deal with it, and probably will still do nothing for the foreseeable. How can we order him to finish up? I have already spent thousands getting my own legal advice which wasn't very helpful and I really can't afford to pay more legal costs. I was told it could cost tens of thousands to take him to court. The LO are saying we can't sue him after their final decision has been made, but they have done nothing to solve the problems we are having with this executor.

To sum up basically - how can we prevent him using our estate funds to pay for his legal advice, and how can we make him finalise the probate?

Keep_pedalling

I don't think anyone here can answer you question based on the info you have provided. Based on your original thread this whole thing is a mess, and part of that mess is down to the residency beneficiaries signing a very silly DoV, and part down to a poorly drawn up will.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=5478312

You say you have spent thousands on legal costs, so what do your legal team say about this?

I'm also confused about the involvement of the LO, I thought they only got involved with professional executors

da_rule

If he is defending the will, which could include defending his position as executor, then he is entitled to spend estate funds on doing so.

Likewise, if the will (or the situation surrounding it) is particularly complicated and the executor needs legal advice so that he dutifully carry out the role then the estate is again liable for the costs.

Yorkshireman99

OTOH if, as seems to be the case he is being a complete idiot then the costs he incurs by his stupidity can be recovered from him.

earlycomputers

Yes the whole thing has been a long drawn out mess, and whilst looking at previous posts on this provides background, I thought it would be simpler to cut to the the most important issues/questions here. The executor is also the solicitor. He wants to take the residuary estate money to pay for his legal defence fees in response to our complaint about his terrible service etc. We hadn't actually sued him - he only got a letter from my solicitor asking for standard probate info. He was aware of the LO complaint too. So - can he legally or morally use our funds to defend his case when we are accusing him of terrible service. How can we make him finalise the probate?

Yorkshireman99

Have you pursued a formal complaint under the firm's complaionts procedure? If not why not? Iff that has failed the report him.

earlycomputers

He is a one man band solicitor who is self employed - hence no complaints procedure

TBagpuss

The ombudsman can propose financial compensation.

It might be worth writing to the solicitor, specifically requesting that he give you a timescale and estimated cost for the remaining work, and a summary of what is still to be done.

Keep a copy of the letter. I don't think that there is anything to stop you making a new complaint if he doesn't now do the work.

securityguy

Anyone who agrees to pay someone else's interest-only mortgage is either a saint or a fool. There is no way out of that. As there is no capital repayment vehicle, the at the end of the interest only mortgage the house will have to be sold and, once the mortgage has been repaid, everyone gets to share in the capital appreciation (on which they pay CGT) if there is any. The original thread is an account of a car-crash in which everyone comes out looking like clowns. There's probably no happy ending to this OP, and the best thing that the beneficiaries could do is stop paying the interest (on what basis are they doing this?) and let the house be repossessed, so that at least the ludicrous saga is put to a halt before they have all bankrupted themselves.

securityguy

From the original thread: "It's a very long story but the testator had an insurance policy that was supposed to cover off the remaining mortgage. As we couldn't find it, the executor decided that the life tenant could take on the remaining mortgage (interest only) but the other beneficiaries had to pay for these mortgage payments."

The beneficiaries should have told the executor to get stuffed. By what power can an executor demand that beneficiaries "had to" make mortgage payments? This is basically an advance-fee scam ("you've won the lottery! there are just a few fees to be paid") and the beneficiaries were absolutely crazy to agree to it, unless they are willing to regard those payments as charitable donations to the life tenant.

OP, neither you nor the other beneficiaries will see a penny of the money. Lick your wounds, learn your lesson, stop the payments (leave the life tenant to it) and walk away. In short, cut your losses and, as another cliche, stop throwing good money after bad. The people responsible are either dead (the testator), incompetent sole traders with few assets to go after (the executor) and badly advised and naive people who probably answer mail from Nigerians with money to disburse (the people that signed the DoV). None of you, apart from the executor, are going to make a penny out of this.