Solicitors taking inordinately long to deal with estate

edgex

The solicitors, who are the executors of my fathers estate, appear to be taking a ridiculous amount of time to deal with it, & are also very uncommunicative.
My brother & I are the only beneficiaries, & whenever asked for anything have dealt with it within a week.

Death - July 2019
Probate applied for - February 2020
Probate granted - March 2020
Property sold & exchanged - November 2020

There was a payout from a pension in August 2019, the tax from this was sent to us in October 2019 & was transferred to the solicitors Feb 2020. This was because it couldn't be paid directly from the pension scheme. The solicitors were informed of this in October 2019, & did not ask for the funds until February 2020, & they were transferred within a week.

The property sold for an amount largely covered by the residence nil rate band. Valuations were done in August 2019, but it wasn't on the market until July 2020.
We cleared the furnishings etc, supplied meter readings & keys.

We were told that probate wasn't applied for until Feb 2020 as that was when they had the Probate Summary from HMRC. An amount of inheritance tax had been paid by that time.
They were then needing to send a copy of the probate to the firm dealing with the employee share plan & a bank.

As far as we are aware, the rest of the estate was/is current accounts, savings accounts & premium bonds.
There haven't been any interim distributions from the solicitors.



We last heard from the solicitors on 6 January, stating they are 'still in the process of corresponding with HMRC regarding tax issues.'
Their own website states "we anticipate that most estate can be settled within 12 months from the date of death.", & we're now at 19+ months.


Where do we go from here?

Are there any guidelines for how long this should take? Should we contact the SRA as the solicitors have gone silent?

xylophone

Where do we go from here?

Formal complaint?

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/public/for-public-visitors/using-a-solicitor/complain-about-a-solicitor

Angelina1

Ours is two years and we are still waiting for final accounts.  Just sold the house.  They had no wills.

Marcon

edgex said:

The solicitors, who are the executors of my fathers estate, appear to be taking a ridiculous amount of time to deal with it, & are also very uncommunicative.
My brother & I are the only beneficiaries, & whenever asked for anything have dealt with it within a week.

Death - July 2019
Probate applied for - February 2020
Probate granted - March 2020
Property sold & exchanged - November 2020

There was a payout from a pension in August 2019, the tax from this was sent to us in October 2019 & was transferred to the solicitors Feb 2020. This was because it couldn't be paid directly from the pension scheme. The solicitors were informed of this in October 2019, & did not ask for the funds until February 2020, & they were transferred within a week.

The property sold for an amount largely covered by the residence nil rate band. Valuations were done in August 2019, but it wasn't on the market until July 2020.
We cleared the furnishings etc, supplied meter readings & keys.

We were told that probate wasn't applied for until Feb 2020 as that was when they had the Probate Summary from HMRC. An amount of inheritance tax had been paid by that time.
They were then needing to send a copy of the probate to the firm dealing with the employee share plan & a bank.

As far as we are aware, the rest of the estate was/is current accounts, savings accounts & premium bonds.
There haven't been any interim distributions from the solicitors.



We last heard from the solicitors on 6 January, stating they are 'still in the process of corresponding with HMRC regarding tax issues.'
Their own website states "we anticipate that most estate can be settled within 12 months from the date of death.", & we're now at 19+ months.


Where do we go from here?

Are there any guidelines for how long this should take? Should we contact the SRA as the solicitors have gone silent?

Probate granted just as COVID hit...but that doesn't excuse the lack of communication (although some of it may be excused on the possibly genuine basis that they are endeavouring to keep costs down, assuming they aren't on a fixed fee).

Look on the firm's website for details of their complaints procedure, and follow that. Keep your complaint as short, unemotional and clear as you can. A simple chronology of dates/events (or lack of them!) would be ideal - what you've written above would be perfect, with a bit of editing/expansion where appropriate.

Keep_pedalling

Angelina1 said:

Ours is two years and we are still waiting for final accounts.  Just sold the house.  They had no wills.

Too late now, but most people are capable of administering an estate unless there are complications, so handing everything over to solicitors is usually an expensive mistake. Even if professional help is required it is usually better to keep control as administrators and only pay for advice for the bits of the process you need help with.

TBagpuss

Have you actually contacted the solicitors to ask them, and to ask for an update?

If you have and they have not responded then by all meanas go down the complaint route but it's normally worth actually asking first.

For instance:

What are you still waiting for?
When was it requested / last chased?
How much longer do you expect it to take?

You can also ask whether they are able to make an interim distribution.

HMRC can take a very long time and if there is potential tax liabilities they have to ensure that they retain enough to cover that 

edgex

We're going to wait until 9th April, that will then have been over 3months / 13 weeks since we last heard from them, then look at either their own complaints process or the SRA.
They were contacted 17 February, which was 6 weeks after their last contact. No reply.

I know HMRC can be slow, but an IHT payment was made back in February 2020 so that Probate could be granted, & the property sold in November 2020.

edgex

Update
We contacted the solicitors at the end of April, copying in the partner responsible for the department. Had a reply back pretty quickly.

Because there was an employee incentive plan, they have had to contact the administrator of it, & what we assume is the share registrar (both Swiss companies). Before they can state whether anything is due to the estate, they require the 'executors identification documents bearing the seal of a notary public'.
[In February 2020 this was simply a 'sealed copy of the grant of probate']

HMRC have been contacted yet again about the employer pension scheme, & reminded that the solicitors are holding the tax payment due from that. Apparently they don't yet require the funds, & will send a 'charge notice' to us when they are satisfied that all is in order.
[The employer pension scheme knew they couldn't pay the tax directly to HMRC, & that was back in October 2019! If HMRC don't want the money then we'll have it back!]


Even allowing for working from home etc, this is glacially slow.

edgex

Update
We've had the charge notices from HMRC, they've only taken a week from the date on the letter to actually arrive, & it's taken HMRC a year to actually produce them!
It states on it 'Period of assessment ending 05 April 2020'

Marcon

edgex said:

Update
We've had the charge notices from HMRC, they've only taken a week from the date on the letter to actually arrive, & it's taken HMRC a year to actually produce them!
It states on it 'Period of assessment ending 05 April 2020'

Seems a bit unfair to blame the solicitors...

MobileSaver

edgex said:

July 2019 ... The solicitors, who are the executors of my fathers estate, appear to be taking a ridiculous amount of time to deal with it, & are also very uncommunicative.

Just to make you feel a little better (that things could be worse) during what must be a sad and frustrating period...

I've been helping someone finalise an estate which has so far taken three years and counting.

The delay is down to the estate being reliant on another estate which is being administered by solicitors and they've taken four years so far to administer that estate; and most of what they've done is only because I've kept badgering them.