POA misuse

MrSlipper

Again, Thank you for taking the time to read and reply.
 My sister took £100k, and demanded, via her solicitor, a further £50k, which mysteriously reduced to £35k, but this is in addition to her share of the estate. I will ignore the "reduced" figure.  The total value of the estate is (including sale of Mum's house) £390k. 

When I said "trustee" this is wording on the Will. In the event I died, the two sisters would assume responsibility for the Will in my place. There is no "Trust" as such..(I'm refraining from making a comment about trusting a sibling  here.) 

The rent which Mum paid was about £200 a week, for just a few weeks. After that, I frequently encouraged my sister to "bill" Mum, but she never did. 

Oh, and the bank called today....woohoo, that's 2 calls in 10 months!  anyway, is the money back? No..but they've "diarised" the matter again, this time till mid April. They now say that at some point, the receiving bank (my sister's) somehow called a halt to the indemnity process, assuming the money was no longer required. I of course queried how that could happen. I was told it was all the receiving bank's fault. But seriously, why would they just halt the process, without an instruction in writing, or at least confirmation from someone in authority? All very suspicious. I queried why I still haven't had their promised letter, confirming that there has been no resolution of the matter (for FOS purposes) and was told that they don't send letters..the text from the bank will suffice. So, why was I told to wait for such a letter? I despair...truly. 

I'm sending my report to the FOS tomorrow. 

naedanger

MrSlipper said:

 I queried why I still haven't had their promised letter, confirming that there has been no resolution of the matter (for FOS purposes) and was told that they don't send letters..the text from the bank will suffice. So, why was I told to wait for such a letter? 

I'm sending my report to the FOS tomorrow. 

Have you looked on the bank's website for details of their complaints process to check if they are following it. (I strongly suspect they aren't and I doubt what you have been told, i.e. that they don't send a final letter, complies with their regulatory requirements.) If they haven't followed their own complaint policy you could add that failure to your complaint.

I agree that you should escalate your complaint to FOS asap. Unfortunately you will probably have to wait a long time for FOS to reach a decision.

Robert_McGeddon

getmore4less said:

I think what is being said is they took £100k  their share of the estate is 1/2 of that £50k

Thanks (and to adviceforeveryone) for this clarification. Shame!

MrSlipper, have you sought legal advice re the merits of your sister's claims (via her solicitor) or are you going it alone?

Malthusian

When a financial company receives a formal complaint, they must within eight weeks issue a final written response, or failing that a letter explaining why they are unable to send a final response. Either way they must set out your right to go to the Financial Ombudsman if you are still dissatisfied, and enclose a leaflet from the Financial Ombudsman. That should have been received in November according to the OP's timescale.

Some will issue their final response via email and include the required Financial Ombudsman leaflet as a link or attachment, which is probably fair enough.

I am very dubious that a text from the bank would meet those requirements. It would be a lot of text to send via SMS.

But if the text did address those three points (why they couldn't issue a final response, the right to go to the FOS, and the FOS leaflet), then the onus was on the OP to go to the FOS. They certainly shouldn't delay any further.