Joint Executor Is It Civil or Criminal?

bobster2

One more question. You say that prior to his death your father transferred ownership of the house (he presumably lived in with your mother) to you and your sister - and that the house was sold and the proceeds split equally between you and your sister.

So when did you sell the house? While your mother was still alive? In which case where did she go to live? Or did she live there until she died and you sold in subsequently.

AB911

After mum died.

AB911

bobster2 said:

AB911 said:

I just want to know if taking all that money, (a couple of thousand at a time) sometimes two or three times a day is criminal or not? Even her partner’s name is on bank statements, taking £200 here and £500 there.

Not sure Mum had a Will, I just took it that it was a joint Will.

When it comes to taking money from your mother's bank account when she was alive - this is nothing to do with being an executor. If she did not have your mother's permission to take the money - then that could simply be theft which is criminal. However, determining whether she had your mother's permission or not could be tricky (i.e. whether or not this money was gifted to her).

But what do you mean "partner's name is on bank statements"? Whose partner? 

Couples can't have a "joint will". You mother must have an estate which needs to be administered - and she may have a will that specifies how assets or to be distributed and who the executors are. 

My sister’s partner who she’s been with on and off for the last 3 or so years.

TBagpuss

OK. anything transferred while your mum was alive - that's gone. You won't be able to prove that your mum did not approve the transfers, or even make them herself.

Transfers after your mum died - at that point, the money was part of her estate. Your sister moving it into her own account isn't beast practice as ideally she would have set up an executors account, but isn't in itself unlawful.

However, she does need to account for those funds, both for the purposes of probate and in distributing the estate. So if she moved money into her account then that should have been accounted for when the estate was finalised and you should have received half of whatever your mum had at the date of her death, less half the costs of her funeral and any debts. 

So far as the benefits are concerned, police are unlikely to be interested but DWP may be, if she was claiming means tested benefits without clearing the inheritance. Was there a will? Have you or your sister actually obtained probate or letters of administration?

Sarahspangles

Go back a step.

Has your sister got probate? You can look this up on the HMCTS website with your mother’s name and date she passed away. If she hasn’t then you can apply.

If she has applied and it’s correct that you’re both Executors, the role of all Executors named in the Will has to be stated in the application for probate. From memory the options available to you if you decide not to act as Executor include:

• ‘Powers Reserved’ which means you’re allowing the other Executors to deal with it but you can, later, reactivate your powers
• Renunciation of the role, where you decline to act altogether.

I think for the second one you have to sign something that is submitted to HMCTS - which did you do? If your sister ticked ‘Powers Reserved’ then you can now apply to act as Executor.

Either way you get more powers as an Executor.

Ignore the effect on your sister’s benefits status, that’s her look out. Your responsibility is to your mother, to enact her Will.

Marcon

AB911 said:

In short, I’m joint executor of our parents Last Will and Testament along with my only sibling. Albeit I’ve been working and living abroad for the past 10 years.

Dad passed away six years ago, Mum last year. Since which, I have discovered my sibling has been transferring funds from our mother’s bank account into her own account, to the tune of £150,000. I have also learnt that after Dad’s death my sibling tried to have me removed as joint executor, and from the Will in its entirety. Hence, she would have inherited everything. Only through the foresight of our father transferring ownership of the family home into both our names before he died, did I get half the money from the sale of the house.

Since Dad passed away my sister has been emptying Mum’s bank account, and has been in receipt of housing & council tax benefit, and universal credit throughout. She’s even had the £20 a week uplift payments during the pandemic, And had the gall to moan when that stopped.

Through my own solicitor back in the UK, I’ve been told there is nothing I can legally do and even the British police have told me it’s a civil matter between her and I.

Is this correct? 

It's correct. Why do you think anyone here (with very few facts to go on) is going to know better than your own solicitor and the police?

AB911

Marcon said:

AB911 said:

In short, I’m joint executor of our parents Last Will and Testament along with my only sibling. Albeit I’ve been working and living abroad for the past 10 years.

Dad passed away six years ago, Mum last year. Since which, I have discovered my sibling has been transferring funds from our mother’s bank account into her own account, to the tune of £150,000. I have also learnt that after Dad’s death my sibling tried to have me removed as joint executor, and from the Will in its entirety. Hence, she would have inherited everything. Only through the foresight of our father transferring ownership of the family home into both our names before he died, did I get half the money from the sale of the house.

Since Dad passed away my sister has been emptying Mum’s bank account, and has been in receipt of housing & council tax benefit, and universal credit throughout. She’s even had the £20 a week uplift payments during the pandemic, And had the gall to moan when that stopped.

Through my own solicitor back in the UK, I’ve been told there is nothing I can legally do and even the British police have told me it’s a civil matter between her and I.

Is this correct? 

It's correct. Why do you think anyone here (with very few facts to go on) is going to know better than your own solicitor and the police?

Never heard of 2nd opinion?

GrumpyDil

I had a kind of similar situation where my sister 'persuaded' my very poorly mother to execute a fresh will shortly before she passed away. It took a number of years to to resolve so you have my sympathy, but to get proper answers you need to give a clear description of what has happened.

As has been said money taken before your mother passed away is gone. 

To get meaningful answers to your question you need to check if your mother had a will and if so, has probate been granted. 

If it has you need to obtain a copy of the will to see if you were a named executor as well as your sister and what exactly the will says. If you were named as an executor then a little digging around that would be in order.

In order to get probate with only one executor where two are named, either the probate was obtained with powers reserved, in which case your sister would have been asked to get you to confirm you were happy with that or obtained on the basis you could not be contacted, either way you need to see what the position is and accept that this is going to be long winded and potentially expensive. (my foray cost around 15000 in legal fees and we settled just before we were going to issue legal proceedings)