How long is long enough for stolen money to be returned?

Emerion

As there is ongoing strife with this problem, I have changed some facts to protect identities.
After several years of struggle over my dad’s estate as his executor, my 2 stepbrothers have agreed, via their solicitor, to pay back money that they stole from my dad whilst he was alive, but confused. It amounts to about £100k. I think more has been taken, but have had to accept that I won’t find it all as some of the thefts go back quite a number of years. They were not related to dad. As they have behaved despicably in other ways too, there is no relationship to salvage, so no need for anyone to advise me to be nice for the sake of the family. Six weeks have passed, and no sign of any money. Whilst they aren’t very rich, they are well off enough to be able to find this amount if they wanted to, even if they’ve spent the original money.  When I asked my solicitor what I need to do next, he took it as an excuse to send another letter to their solicitor, for which I will be  handsomely charged, no doubt, and which has produced no response. I’m just wondering how long is reasonable? I really don’t want this to go to court, when it has been unbelievably stressful for so long. I’ve had enough and just want it over. If you’ve been through something like this, how long did it take? Will I have to threaten them with the courts, and hope they want to avoid the embarrassment? If you did go to court, how big an ordeal was it? I won’t end up with costs awarded against me will I? This money is to be shared between a few beneficiaries , so no one is going to end up rich enough to not care about substantial extra costs. 

lincroft1710

If the money is not forthcoming then court may be your only option. It can be stressful. If you lose the case you could end up with costs awarded against you. 


Talk to your solicitor, they are the best person to advise you.

Sea_Shell

Emerion said:

As there is ongoing strife with this problem, I have changed some facts to protect identities.
After several years of struggle over my dad’s estate as his executor, my 2 stepbrothers have agreed, via their solicitor, to pay back money that they stole from my dad whilst he was alive, but confused. It amounts to about £100k. I think more has been taken, but have had to accept that I won’t find it all as some of the thefts go back quite a number of years. They were not related to dad. As they have behaved despicably in other ways too, there is no relationship to salvage, so no need for anyone to advise me to be nice for the sake of the family. Six weeks have passed, and no sign of any money. Whilst they aren’t very rich, they are well off enough to be able to find this amount if they wanted to, even if they’ve spent the original money.  When I asked my solicitor what I need to do next, he took it as an excuse to send another letter to their solicitor, for which I will be  handsomely charged, no doubt, and which has produced no response. I’m just wondering how long is reasonable? I really don’t want this to go to court, when it has been unbelievably stressful for so long. I’ve had enough and just want it over. If you’ve been through something like this, how long did it take? Will I have to threaten them with the courts, and hope they want to avoid the embarrassment? If you did go to court, how big an ordeal was it? I won’t end up with costs awarded against me will I? This money is to be shared between a few beneficiaries , so no one is going to end up rich enough to not care about substantial extra costs. 

Has their solicitor confirmed this, in writing, and have they admitted it was taken unlawfully?   Or is the "admission" more woolly than that?

I don't know about timescales, but could they renege on this promise and do you have any proof that's what happened?

Emerion

Yes I have some proof, in the form of copies of  a few large cheques drawn on his account in their names long after he had been diagnosed with dementia and was very confused. There was no history of him ever giving them a penny when he was well. Their solicitor has confirmed in writing that they will pay it back, but they have not admitted that it was unlawful. I suppose I do have to ask my solicitor what to do next. I just haven’t had the feeling that he’s very interested in this beyond firing off the odd letter, which I could have done myself. I suppose they can’t deny getting letters which came via a solicitor, so it’s worth it for that. 

lincroft1710

Emerion said:

Yes I have some proof, in the form of copies of  a few large cheques drawn on his account in their names long after he had been diagnosed with dementia and was very confused. There was no history of him ever giving them a penny when he was well. Their solicitor has confirmed in writing that they will pay it back, but they have not admitted that it was unlawful. I suppose I do have to ask my solicitor what to do next. I just haven’t had the feeling that he’s very interested in this beyond firing off the odd letter, which I could have done myself. I suppose they can’t deny getting letters which came via a solicitor, so it’s worth it for that. 

If the cheques weren't forged and his signature appears normal, then it would not necessarily be "unlawful". 

Shelldean

lincroft1710 said:

Emerion said:

Yes I have some proof, in the form of copies of  a few large cheques drawn on his account in their names long after he had been diagnosed with dementia and was very confused. There was no history of him ever giving them a penny when he was well. Their solicitor has confirmed in writing that they will pay it back, but they have not admitted that it was unlawful. I suppose I do have to ask my solicitor what to do next. I just haven’t had the feeling that he’s very interested in this beyond firing off the odd letter, which I could have done myself. I suppose they can’t deny getting letters which came via a solicitor, so it’s worth it for that. 

If the cheques weren't forged and his signature appears normal, then it would not necessarily be "unlawful". 

I think what has possibly happened is step brothers have presented a confused man with cheque book and said sign this.
Due to his dementia he hasn't realised it's a blank chq he's signing!

They then fill in the blanks gifting themselves thousands?

Mr.Generous

Shelldean said:

lincroft1710 said:

Emerion said:

Yes I have some proof, in the form of copies of  a few large cheques drawn on his account in their names long after he had been diagnosed with dementia and was very confused. There was no history of him ever giving them a penny when he was well. Their solicitor has confirmed in writing that they will pay it back, but they have not admitted that it was unlawful. I suppose I do have to ask my solicitor what to do next. I just haven’t had the feeling that he’s very interested in this beyond firing off the odd letter, which I could have done myself. I suppose they can’t deny getting letters which came via a solicitor, so it’s worth it for that. 

If the cheques weren't forged and his signature appears normal, then it would not necessarily be "unlawful". 

I think what has possibly happened is step brothers have presented a confused man with cheque book and said sign this.
Due to his dementia he hasn't realised it's a blank chq he's signing!

They then fill in the blanks gifting themselves thousands?

Or possibly something else. They might turn around and say "He treated us like son's and wanted us to have that money" as my stepfamily did when they stole from my Dad after his stroke. Police were useless. We threatened to publically shame them and that worked.

Marcon

Emerion said:

As there is ongoing strife with this problem, I have changed some facts to protect identities.
After several years of struggle over my dad’s estate as his executor, my 2 stepbrothers have agreed, via their solicitor, to pay back money that they stole from my dad whilst he was alive, but confused. It amounts to about £100k. I think more has been taken, but have had to accept that I won’t find it all as some of the thefts go back quite a number of years. They were not related to dad. As they have behaved despicably in other ways too, there is no relationship to salvage, so no need for anyone to advise me to be nice for the sake of the family. Six weeks have passed, and no sign of any money. Whilst they aren’t very rich, they are well off enough to be able to find this amount if they wanted to, even if they’ve spent the original money.  When I asked my solicitor what I need to do next, he took it as an excuse to send another letter to their solicitor, for which I will be  handsomely charged, no doubt, and which has produced no response. I’m just wondering how long is reasonable? I really don’t want this to go to court, when it has been unbelievably stressful for so long. I’ve had enough and just want it over. If you’ve been through something like this, how long did it take? Will I have to threaten them with the courts, and hope they want to avoid the embarrassment? If you did go to court, how big an ordeal was it? I won’t end up with costs awarded against me will I? This money is to be shared between a few beneficiaries , so no one is going to end up rich enough to not care about substantial extra costs. 

Poor old solicitor. You ask for advice/want action and he does the correct thing. What did you expect? 

Your solicitor needs to put pressure on your stepbrothers' solicitor to confirm a timescale and then stick to it, failing which court action is likely to be your only option.

Your solicitor is the correct person to advise on all your queries because they have all the facts specific to this case. Nobody here has a clue, apart from the few lines of information in your post, so all you'll get (at best) is well meaning but hopelessly under informed guesswork.

CKhalvashi

Marcon said:

Emerion said:

As there is ongoing strife with this problem, I have changed some facts to protect identities.
After several years of struggle over my dad’s estate as his executor, my 2 stepbrothers have agreed, via their solicitor, to pay back money that they stole from my dad whilst he was alive, but confused. It amounts to about £100k. I think more has been taken, but have had to accept that I won’t find it all as some of the thefts go back quite a number of years. They were not related to dad. As they have behaved despicably in other ways too, there is no relationship to salvage, so no need for anyone to advise me to be nice for the sake of the family. Six weeks have passed, and no sign of any money. Whilst they aren’t very rich, they are well off enough to be able to find this amount if they wanted to, even if they’ve spent the original money.  When I asked my solicitor what I need to do next, he took it as an excuse to send another letter to their solicitor, for which I will be  handsomely charged, no doubt, and which has produced no response. I’m just wondering how long is reasonable? I really don’t want this to go to court, when it has been unbelievably stressful for so long. I’ve had enough and just want it over. If you’ve been through something like this, how long did it take? Will I have to threaten them with the courts, and hope they want to avoid the embarrassment? If you did go to court, how big an ordeal was it? I won’t end up with costs awarded against me will I? This money is to be shared between a few beneficiaries , so no one is going to end up rich enough to not care about substantial extra costs. 

Poor old solicitor. You ask for advice/want action and he does the correct thing. What did you expect? 

Your solicitor needs to put pressure on your stepbrothers' solicitor to confirm a timescale and then stick to it, failing which court action is likely to be your only option.

Your solicitor is the correct person to advise on all your queries because they have all the facts specific to this case. Nobody here has a clue, apart from the few lines of information in your post, so all you'll get (at best) is well meaning but hopelessly under informed guesswork.

This is the best answer you're going to get, and OP will need to accept that unless there is a clear admission of theft/fraud or it can be proven in another way (which from the facts presented here at this stage it can't) this will be treated as a loan rather than theft/fraud. Please note that I appreciate we may not be working on the full facts but I'm working on what we do have.

As far as the loan repayment goes, this may not be fast or simple due to the amounts involved. From my only personal experience with a similar (legal) situation to this, I owed an estate around £1000 on the death of the person involved for something I'd been paid for but hadn't yet paid out (it was for a relative at the start of Covid and I was more focused on an orderly partial shutdown of my own business, so the background was completely different). I asked the executor for bank details to repay this money to the estate and did it as soon as these were received. It took about 2 weeks from start to finish but if I hadn't been away could have been completed in less than 48 hours.

This of course was your first step, so any further action will be a standard debt recovery situation, however another angle it may be worth considering here will be to reduce this amount from any amount to be inherited by your stepbrothers. If they'll agree to this it'll keep costs and stress down for everyone involved and may not help the estate or beneficiaries straight away but if there is any excess due, £10k (as an example) is much easier to find than £100k for anyone, so there is a benefit to all.

If this is possible, that would be my first step.

Longwalker

You are never going to get this money without court action, and even then its not guaranteed 

If the courts award the money, they may still not cough up with means you will have to pursue it, that costs even more money and they may declare bankruptcy 

Sea_Shell

CKhalvashi said:

Marcon said:

Emerion said:

As there is ongoing strife with this problem, I have changed some facts to protect identities.
After several years of struggle over my dad’s estate as his executor, my 2 stepbrothers have agreed, via their solicitor, to pay back money that they stole from my dad whilst he was alive, but confused. It amounts to about £100k. I think more has been taken, but have had to accept that I won’t find it all as some of the thefts go back quite a number of years. They were not related to dad. As they have behaved despicably in other ways too, there is no relationship to salvage, so no need for anyone to advise me to be nice for the sake of the family. Six weeks have passed, and no sign of any money. Whilst they aren’t very rich, they are well off enough to be able to find this amount if they wanted to, even if they’ve spent the original money.  When I asked my solicitor what I need to do next, he took it as an excuse to send another letter to their solicitor, for which I will be  handsomely charged, no doubt, and which has produced no response. I’m just wondering how long is reasonable? I really don’t want this to go to court, when it has been unbelievably stressful for so long. I’ve had enough and just want it over. If you’ve been through something like this, how long did it take? Will I have to threaten them with the courts, and hope they want to avoid the embarrassment? If you did go to court, how big an ordeal was it? I won’t end up with costs awarded against me will I? This money is to be shared between a few beneficiaries , so no one is going to end up rich enough to not care about substantial extra costs. 

Poor old solicitor. You ask for advice/want action and he does the correct thing. What did you expect? 

Your solicitor needs to put pressure on your stepbrothers' solicitor to confirm a timescale and then stick to it, failing which court action is likely to be your only option.

Your solicitor is the correct person to advise on all your queries because they have all the facts specific to this case. Nobody here has a clue, apart from the few lines of information in your post, so all you'll get (at best) is well meaning but hopelessly under informed guesswork.

This is the best answer you're going to get, and OP will need to accept that unless there is a clear admission of theft/fraud or it can be proven in another way (which from the facts presented here at this stage it can't) this will be treated as a loan rather than theft/fraud. Please note that I appreciate we may not be working on the full facts but I'm working on what we do have.

Of course.   I hadn't thought of it that way.     "foul play" or not, then this is purely a debt to the estate, to which they've agree is owed.   

So if the debt remains unpaid, then it's a debt recovery situation.   With all that that may entail.   The alleged "theft" element becomes irrelevant.